


Duoman: Ships in the Night

by alittlepieceofgundamwing_archivist



Category: Automan (TV), Gundam Wing
Genre: 6+1, 6+2, Action, Alternate Universe - Fusion, Corny, Fandom Allusions & Cliches & References, Humor, Innuendo, Lime, M/M, Mystery, Not to be taken seriously, Out of Character, by Dacia, light melodramatic angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-15
Updated: 2018-02-15
Packaged: 2019-03-19 04:29:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 24,837
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13696884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alittlepieceofgundamwing_archivist/pseuds/alittlepieceofgundamwing_archivist
Summary: by Dacia, ** a little piece of gundam wing** archivist extraordinaire ^_~--"This does not bode well.""No. No, it doesn't.""Mayhap this could lead to our imminent incarceration.""Yes. That is a distinct possibility."





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This story was originally archived at [A Little Piece of Gundam Wing](https://fanlore.org/wiki/A_Little_Piece_Of_Gundam_Wing), which closed in 2017. To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project after July 2017.
> 
> Warnings: yaoi, lime-ish, AU, OOC-ness, more clichés than you can shake a stick at, embarrassing amounts of melodramaticism, a cloying amount of witty reparté, random and completely unnecessary Japanese words, blatant over use and misuse of established stereotypes, and, yes, everyone's gay. ^_~
> 
> Notes: This is based not only on the concept of Automan, but a particular episode entitled, you guessed it, 'Ships in the Night'. In order to help along those of you who have never seen, or possibly even heard of, Automan, I have included, almost verbatim, the introduction from the series. The small changes I have made make it relevant to what I'm doing. Don't laugh too hard. You'll hurt yourself. Oh, and I kind of veered off from the show fairly early on in this, so I guess you *can* blame me if it totally sucks...
> 
> //thoughts//

[ Into _\--_ narrated by Duoman ]  
  
_This is the story of Heero Yuy doing what he likes best -- fighting crime in the streets. You see, Heero's a Preventer. Unfortunately, the chief doesn't_ want _Heero in the streets. So Heero must fight crime in his own way -- in the computer room. That's where he's an expert. Fortunately for me, Heero's advanced knowledge in electronics led him to experiment with what is called a hologram. That's a very fancy word for a 3-dimensional picture that, when perfected, can be made to look real, sound real -- as a matter of fact, given enough power, it can even be made to_ feel _real. That's kind of what brought me into this world. My name... is Duoman._

_Duoman: (Literally appearing out of thin air) You must be Heero Yuy._

_Heero: How did you know that?_

_Duoman: It's on the programming you fed into my systems. I must say, Heero, you're very good. Very good indeed. I look_ wonderful _._

_Heero: If you do say so yourself..._

_Duoman: You programmed me to be honest. But tell me, why did you call me Duoman?_

_Heero: It means you're the first truly dual man_ [don't ask, ok? I couldn't think of anything else] _. You can do anything, because you're not real._

_Duoman: Oh, but I am. I'm as real as you are. I'm just different. And, thanks to you, perfect._

_Heero: Nobody's perfect, Duoman._

_Duoman: That's not true, Heero. You've programmed me to observe other people and do what they can do as well as they can do it -- Jimmy Connors playing Tennis, John Travolta dancing... In fact, on a scale of 1 to 10, consider me an 11._

_Heero: (groaning slightly) I've created a monster._

_No. What Heero really created was a wonderful force... for good. Duoman. That's me._

_[fancy intro music]_ ^_~  
  
+  
  
The trouble with being a recognized computer genius was that your finesse with them tended to overshadow just about everything else you might be good at. And Heero Yuy was good at quite a fair number of things. His tally at the shooting range was near unrivaled (a feat marred only by the fact that he tended to take on _live_ targets. In his defense, it was only when they were exceedingly obnoxious). His tracking abilities were second to none (no matter what Vice Minister Relena Darlien might say. Truth was, when Heero Yuy ever failed to locate her, he knew damn well where she was). And there wasn't anyone alive who could say he didn't play a mean game of scrabble (no comment necessary). But what was all that against the undeniable fact that if you put Heero Yuy in front of a computer, you would swear there must be a god or two somewhere up in heaven because that boy could work miracles. He had been told by far too many people for it to be merely coincidence that when he truly got into the flow, it was as if he were making love to the keyboard.  
  
Which was why he was now stuck in his darkened office, his nimble fingers fairly flying over the keys of said keyboard as he created an unbreakable cover for Preventer Extraordinaire Chang Wufei who, in the company of his partner Quatre Raberba Winner, was presently headed for the luxurious resort of San Rommell in order to investigate the disappearance of...  
  
Heero paused. // Where was I? // He really had to work on his train of thought. As quiet as he was in real life, he was prone to get very long-winded in his head [1].  
  
The door opened to his office. Heero noticed this without ceasing, or even looking up from, his work.  
  
"What is it, Barton?"  
  
"The chief wants to know if you're done with that cover."  
  
Heero couldn't help but snort in disdain. Peons... What mattered it to him if some overly rich bigwig had gone missing? Still, he held a great respect for Chang, even if he didn't always care to admit it. If keeping him safe was his job, he would do it as everything else he did _\--_ to the best of his abilities. He also knew that if anything happened to Quatre, Barton here would have his head on a stake.  
  
"Done."  
  
Barton's smile lit up his one visible green eye. The effect was somewhat impressive, even in this dim light. "Thanks, Heero."  
  
Heero raised the corners of his mouth in his best approximation of a grin. "No problem."  
  
"And about that other matter...."  
  
"I have the computer working on it."  
  
With a curt nod, Barton was gone.  
  
"The computer?" came a laughing voice. "The computer?? Is that your pet name for me now?" The voice attempted what was supposedly an impression of Scotty. "Hello, computer," came the voice in a thrilling Scottish trill. [2]  
  
"Duo..."  
  
The laughing voice, a moment ago bodiless, suddenly found a home in a violet-eyed boy sitting to Heero's right, his chin cupped in his hands as he studied Heero's computer-type handiwork.  
  
"Not bad, not bad. For a human." His laugh filled the office. "God, I'm funny."  
  
"Extremely," agreed Heero with a completely straight face. "Hilarious. Now is there a reason you're here?"  
  
"Do I need a reason, Hee-chan?"  
  
Duo stretched out a hand and ran his fingers along the length of Heero's exposed arm. Heero kept himself from squirming at the light touch only by a supreme act of will. // Damn it. Why does he have to feel so _real._ //  
  
"We've gone over this, sweetness. I feel real because I _am_ real. Just different."  
  
Heero's voice chimed in with the last two words, although he sounded much less sure.  
  
Duo raised his hands in supplication, supposedly to the computer gods. "Why me?"  
  
"Duo..."  
  
"You were right," said Duo without further ado, surprisingly getting to the very nub of the matter. "Not only has Mr. X disappeared while vacationing at San Rommell, but also 5 other monetarily advantaged men. All within the space of two months."  
  
"Two months?"  
  
Now that didn't make any sense at all. Even the backward hicks of San Rommell who had the audacity to call themselves a security service should have picked up on this. Suddenly, it seemed that Chang and Quatre were in a lot more peril than had been foreseen.  
  
"Get through to Chang. Use his private line."  
  
Duo grinned, happy as ever to be useful to his spiky-haired creator, before his eyes glazed over in that connecting-to-one-of-various-communication-satellites kind of way.  
  
"Slight problem there."  
  
"What?"  
  
"I can't get through."  
  
Heero literally sat up and took notice. The word 'can't' simply wasn't in Duo's vocabulary unless it was in reference to Vice Minister Relena Darlien ('I can't _stand_ her!'), reality TV shows ('I can't believe anyone _watches_ this junk!'), and early morning sunshine ('I can't get over how _good_ this feels...'), in that order. As far as Heero knew, there was nothing that Duoman _couldn't_ do.  
  
"There's only one thing that could be blocking me, Heero."  
  
The greenish glow of the monitors surrounding them cast Heero's somber expression in a bewitchingly dramatic light. "The Wing Zero System." He paused a moment in thought before continuing. "There's nothing for it. We'll have to go ourselves."  
  
"Really? We're going to San Rommell? Home of the terminally tan?" As always, Duo saved the best for last. "Together?"  
  
Heero couldn't help but feel a small tremor run through his body at this final word. Whether it was from excitement or apprehension, he couldn't dare to guess.  
  
"Yes, Duo."  
  
"Sugoi!!" His form shimmered, solidifying to reveal light purple tights and accompanying Batman accessories. "Let's race there fast!" [3]  
  
+  
  
Duoman's existence was hardly common knowledge at the distinguished Preventer headquarters. In fact, Quatre was the only other person to know exactly what Duoman was. So it was that Heero Yuy exited his office alone and quickly made his way outside where Duo would, as always, be waiting. He stepped through the outer doors, his eyes squinting slightly in the harsh light of the winter sun before stopping short at the sight of what was undoubtedly Duoman's answer to the word 'how' in the question 'but how are we going to get there'.  
  
"You like?" came Duo's voice from a startlingly near proximity over his shoulder. "I call him Deathscythe."  
  
Heero felt warm breath caress his cheek. Damn it. It felt so... No. He was _not_ going there again.  
  
In the next second, Duoman ran off for the Gundam, his long braid swinging behind him in a way that would best be termed 'seductive' if Heero hadn't been aware that the violet-eyed wonder wasn't, after all, anything more that a pleasingly organized jumble of light waves. He stopped only when he realized his creator was not following.  
  
"Come on, come on, come on. No time to be sitting around twiddling our thumbs. Don't we have villains to catch, or something?"  
  
Heero sighed. "Yes, Duo." He gestured vaguely towards the awesome machine towering before them. "But couldn't you have chosen a more... unobtrusive mode of transportation?"  
  
Duo clutched a hand to his chest in mock agony. "Unobtrusive? Unobtrusive?! My god, man, what are you trying to do?! Kill me?!"  
  
The blue-eyed Preventer fought hard to halt the smile rising to his all but definitively stoic features. Unbeknownst to him, he could not keep it from shining through his eyes and at their cobalt sparkle Duoman grinned all the more. As Heero approached him, shaking his head now in addition to his heavily laden sighs, he could almost have sworn the holographic boy was... purring? // When did I ever program him to purr? // Putting the question aside for pondering at a later time when he wasn't, say, on active duty, he followed Duoman as he scrambled up the Gundam, watching him pose in his favourite superhero stance a moment before slipping inside the cramped cockpit. When he reached the cockpit himself, he was both exhilarated and dismayed to discover that the amount of room set aside for the actual passengers in this particular Gundam was very little indeed. He soon found his entire right side pressed tightly against the length of Duo's body.  
  
"Kind of... close in here, isn't it?" He sincerely hoped his voice hadn't just come out in the squeak he thought it had.  
  
"Ne, Hee-chan. I though we could use a little togetherness."  
  
Resorting to his quite purposeful monotone persona, Heero could only intone his magical 'hn' as he directed every fiber of his being into not under any circumstance allowing himself to be aroused by this situation.  
  
San Rommell was, in all actuality, a space colony that had been public property but subsequently sold after several small and unpublicized disasters had made it apparent that the funds earmarked for renovations and repair had been paying for more sex romps than bulkheads. A mysterious man by the name of Zechs Merquise had acquired the run-down station for a song and then proceeded to turn it into the most exclusive resort to ever to have seen the light of day.  
  
As Duo piloted the almost absurdly imposing Gundam up through the steel grey December skies, Heero's thought were quite gratefully taken over by impulsive and impromptu prayers to any deities still existing in an age of hand-held nuclear projectile weapons that he would arrive at San Rommell with everything, including his light lunch, exactly where it had started. Duo's maneuvering was as breathtaking as his maniacal laughter.  
  
"Ano... Duo..."  
  
"Yes, Heero?"  
  
"You do realize that all you have to do is fly in a straight line."  
  
He valiantly ignored Duoman's answering chuckle.  
  
"And that there really is no need to travel quite this fast..."  
  
"Are you kidding, sweet cheeks? I'm going this slow for _you_. If it were just me, I'd have been there last Tuesday, but I'm not at all sure you would survive the trip."  
  
At this enlightening and yet not at all comforting revelation, Heero did the only thing he could think of _\--_ he closed his eyes and held on for dear life.  
  
After what seemed like endless hours of flight, but was in reality only about ten minutes, Heero realized they had slowed to a non-sickening velocity.  
  
"Are we there yet?"  
  
Duo's laughter was like wine _\--_ intoxicating and addictive. Heero could not make himself regret the fact that the violet-eyed hologram was all but laughter personified.  
  
"Right on target. Any ideas on where we should set down? I have the strangest feeling that we won't exactly be welcomed with open arms."  
  
Heero couldn't help but agree. "Try one of the loading docks," he suggested. "It's not the least obvious way to get in, but I think it's our best shot."  
  
"I'm all over it."  
  
Heero was accustomed to the voices in his head. Usually, they were quite helpful. They told him useful things like his exact heart rate, the best routes to avoid traffic, that he really should rethink the spandex once in a while... There was one particular voice, however, that had been gaining in strength ever since the arrival of Duoman in his life that he did his best to ignore. So when this voice now said // But I wish you were all over _me_ //, he didn't so much as blink.  
  
Duo had by this time successfully landed his virtual Gundam at the docking bay which showed the fewest signs of recent activity. This was the good news. The bad news was that, six unsolved and unreported disappearances aside, San Rommell's security force appeared to be very much on the ball seeing as how at present several black clad astronauts were clambering up Deathscythe.  
  
"This does not bode well."  
  
"No. No, it doesn't."  
  
"Mayhap this could lead to our imminent incarceration."  
  
"Yes. That is a distinct possibility."  
  
Silence.  
  
"Go, Duo."  
  
"But..."  
  
"You've got to. Chang and Quatre need us _now_ , not whenever we can talk ourselves out of this. I'll be OK."  
  
Duo continued to look uncertain, but could not deny the logic of Heero's argument. He nodded curtly. "I'll be back for you as soon as I can."  
  
With this, he leaned close, kissed Heero's slightly parted lips soundly, and disappeared leaving one greatly flustered and slightly breathless unofficially undercover Preventer to explain the impossibility of his arrival on San Rommell to what turned out to be a total of six distinctly unfriendly security agents.  



	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> by Dacia, ** a little piece of gundam wing** archivist extraordinaire ^_~

Duoman couldn't help but let out a slow, round whistle as he was confronted by the magnitude of what money can buy. Every single one of his human senses told him that he was indeed on a sunswept island in the middle of a glimmering sea. It was his *in*human senses that saw behind all the magic that was San Rommell. His sauntering promenade to the hotel where he knew Heero had booked Chang was punctuated by quite a few outright stares of longing to which he was somehow quite unaware. Arriving at the Sparkling Sands Resort, he made a beeline for the pool. It seemed to be the obvious place to attract attention to oneself, which was exactly what he knew Chang would be attempting to do.  
  
\+   
  
Quatre Raberba Winner had decided about five minutes ago that this was heaven. He stretched out his long, golden legs, drinking in the heady sunshine until he felt a bit dizzy. The only thing that could possibly have made this moment any better would be the presence of his husband. Quatre caught his breath. Or that gorgeous vision of a creature walking away from him. His aquamarine eyes traveled the length of the best pair of legs he had _ever_ seen, rising to the hem of cut-off denim shorts which left very little to the imagination, before coming to light on a very long, very familiar chestnut-hued braid.   
  
Chestnut-hued braid...  
  
"O merciful Allah! Duoman!"  
  
At the sound of his name, even from such a great distance and so softly spoken, Duo turned unerringly towards its source, his resulting grin rivaling the sunshine in brilliance. By the time Duo had reached his side, Quatre had reigned in his rampaging libido. If Duo was here, that meant Heero could not be far behind.  
  
"Duo! What is it?!"  
  
"Good to see you, too, Kat."  
  
Duo laid out on the chaise next to the anxious blonde. Quatre moved a little closer and heard... purring? //Since when did Heero program him to purr?//  
  
"Duo..."  
  
Duo sighed melodramatically. "Just like Heero. What is it with you Preventers, anyways?"  
  
"*Duo*..."  
  
"Turns out Mr. X isn’t the only shady bigshot to have gone missing here, Kat."  
  
Quatre blinked. Getting information out of Duoman usually involved some sort of emotional bribery. For him to be this forthcoming so quickly told him that there was something drastically amiss.  
  
"Where’s Heero, Duo?"  
  
"By this time, he’s most likely in whatever passes for a jail in this... paradise."  
  
"*Jail*?!"  
  
"Six, Kat. Six men have disappeared from here in the past two months."  
  
"Six?"  
  
"Without a trace. Chances are their disappearances weren’t exactly voluntary, Kat. Chances are they met with some horrific and untimely demise. And chances are that you and Chang are next on their list."  
  
"But what am I supposed to do, Duo? Things aren’t what they seem here. Something’s wrong, but we don’t know what. Every lead we get leads to a dead end."  
  
"I can’t tell you what to do, Kat. I’ll help you all I can, but first I have a Heero to rescue. Keep your eyes open. Keep your ear to the ground. And when you’re in that resulting position, keep some clothes on cuz you are just _way_ too delectable to be walking around half naked like this."  
  
Quatre couldn’t help but smile. "I’ll be careful, Duo." He watched pensively as Duo stood, noting his slight stiffness. Almost without thinking, he reached out to catch hold of his hand. "Heero will be alright, Duo."  
  
He leaned down to pull Quatre into a needy embrace. "I know, Kat. I know. But he’s lost without me."  
  
+  
  
Preventer Extraordinaire Chang Wufei was concentrating on his glass. The drink menu in the bar had been, in his eyes, indecipherable. Having more on his mind that festive concoctions which he wasn’t even planning on ingesting, he had chosen the fifth item from the top. It wasn’t until the words had escaped his mouth that he began to be curious about what it was he had just ordered. The bartender had taken one look at his loose, gleaming black hair, flashed him a smile that was more than merely polite, and handed him a glass filled with all the colours of sunset in liquid form. He was startled out of his reflections only when he sensed an overwhelmingly masculine presence at his side.  
  
"You look like you could use a friend."  
  
"No," said Wufei. "I look like I could use a drink, and I’ve already got one of those." He dipped an idle finger into his glass, stirring it languidly until the colours melded into one.  
  
"I didn’t take you for the drinking type."  
  
As Wufei turned towards his admirer, he became instantly aware of two things. The first was that the man before him was the physical incarnation of his most desparate dreams, right down to the slight, knowing smile and domineering manner. It was the second observation, however, that caused his heart rate to quicken slightly _\--_ he was being contacted. After all the searching and worrying, it had been while he wasn’t looking that he had been found.   
  
He smiled deeply into the man’s hazel eyes. "Well, then... what would you suggest?"  
  
"Something a bit sweeter," replied the man. "And harder."  
  
It was just as well that Wufei had no plans on sipping his drink. That last comment would have made him choke on it.  
  
"I don’t usually... indulge so early in the day."  
  
The man laughed, the sound setting off shock waves that caused Wufei’s slight form to tremble slightly. "Later, then."  
  
"I’ll be looking forward to it..."  
  
"Treize."  
  
"Treize..."  
  
He watched a moment as the ginger-haired man left the bar. His movements were graceful and sensual, yet naturally so. There hadn’t been a trace of artifice in his actions or his words. Wufei smiled to himself. There was no doubt about it. This man was too good to be true. He had to be the one. Satisfied, he went in search of Quatre, leaving behind him, in a forgotten glass, a broken sunset.  
  
+  
  
Watching Duo walk away was like waking from a dream. It was only by the tingling in his fingertips that he knew it to have been real.  
  
"Who was that?"  
  
The question caught him by surprise. "Wufei! I didn’t see you there!"  
  
The Chinese man took the seat left vacant by the retreating braided figure. "Obviously."  
  
It was by Wufei’s following silence that Quatre knew an answer was still expected to his query.  
  
"He’s just a friend. A very... close friend."  
  
Wufei raised a single eyebrow. "Indeed."  
  
Quatre blushed the colour of a spring rose, rushing to tell his partner Duo’s news in an effort to keep himself from becoming more flustered. He was very much in love with, and faithful to, Trowa Barton, but there was something about Duo that set off a cycle of the wickedest fantasies in Quatre’s usually innocent mind.  
  
"And Heero told you this..."  
  
"In transit," completed Quatre. It was a small lie with a pearl of truth in it _\--_ Heero would be here soon enough. "He thought we could use the backup."  
  
Wufei pulled Quatre over to his chair, placing the blonde boy squarely in his lap. There were advantages to going undercover as lovers, the first of which being that no one would be suspicious if he appeared to be whispering sweet nothings into Quatre’s ear.  
  
"He may not have as much time as he thinks. I’ve been contacted."  
  
"You sure?"  
  
Wufei thought back to Treize’s golden eyes. With distance, he told himself they weren’t so breathtaking after all. He almost believed it.   
  
"I’m sure."  
  
Quatre wrapped his arms around Wufei’s neck. "I’ve got a bad feeling about this."  
  
"We came here to do a job, Quatre. We knew we’d be in danger."  
  
"I know, I know." He sank his cheek to the other boy’s shoulder. "Do me a favour? Be careful?"  
  
Wufei chuckled. It was something he allowed himself to do only in his partner’s presence. If it ever were to come out that such a sound had escaped his lips, he would go to his grave denying it.  
  
"I’m a Preventer, Barton. Being careful is what I do."  
  
It was only Wufei who called him by his married name and it never failed to make Quatre grin like a fool in love, which is what he proceeded to do now.  
  
"I’m going to hold you to that, Chang."  
  
+  
  
Heero raised his head slowly as soon as the last of his tormentors had left the small, barren cell into which he’d been placed. He had not expected to be treated with dignity. After all, the Preventers were hardly more than thorns in the sides of the colonies. But when he had been dragged from Deathscythe’s cockpit and beaten til he bled, he was shocked beyond belief. They hadn’t even taken the trouble to ask him any questions. He knew he must look as bad as he felt, but as he slowly stood, testing his battered limbs, he was assured that nothing had been broken. It was only as he sat again that he realized something was very wrong. No one had know he was coming and it wasn’t as if he were in uniform. How had they known who he was?   
  
His thoughts were interrupted by the door opening. Heero steeled himself for what would most likely be a continuance of his previous treatment when a deep, vibrant voice spoke.  
  
"I see I’m a bit late."  
  
Thinking on his feet was one of those things Heero Yuy was quite good at. However, in the aftermath of what he categorized as the third worst beating of his life, the best reply he could come up with was, "Pardon?"  
  
He raised his eyes and found himself literally drowning in two icy twin pools.  
  
"If I had been here a bit sooner, you wouldn’t have had to go through this."  
  
Heero put his fingers to his wrist. Yes _\--_ he seemed to have a pulse which meant his heart was still beating. But if he was alive, how could he be seeing this angel?  
  
"Oh, *this*? It’s just a scratch."  
  
The man grimaced, reaching out a long-fingered hand to sweep Heero’s hair out of his eyes. "I beg to differ."  
  
"Listen. Don’t take this the wrong way, but... who the hell _are_ you?"  
  
"Zechs Merquise. I’m Head of Operations on San Rommell."  
  
Well, thought Heero, that explains... _nothing_. His beating was the kind of thing Heads of Operations ordered, not apologized for.  
  
"It’s a long story, Preventer Yuy, one which you shall hear in its entirety. However, I do believe now is neither the place nor the time."  
  
"There, I would have to agree."  
  
Heero attempted to regain his feet, but the second time around his legs weren’t quite as cooperative.  
  
"Here." Zechs strode forward, his platinum blonde hair brushing lightly across Heero’s face as he bent over. "Lean on me."  
  
It was as the taller man took the shorter into his arms that Duo bounced in the door.  
  
"Hi, honey! Sorry to have been so long. Let’s you and me blow this popstand."  
  
Zechs’ eyes opened wide in shock and Heero’s cheeks flushed bright pink right about the time Duo stopped talking and started looking.  
  
"But I see the fucking cavalry’s already arrived."  
  
"Duo..."  
  
"No. No need to explain. Who am _I_ after all _\--_ "  
  
"*Duo*..."  
  
"I really don’t mean to intrude," broke in Zechs, "but my plan involved more of an emphasis on 'leaving’ and less on 'squabbling’."  
  
It was then that Duo realized what his jealously had blinded him to before _\--_ the fact that Heero was quite possibly leaning on this gorgeous man because he was in no shape to stand on his own two feet. "You’re right, blondie." He crossed the room to take Heero into his arms and lifted him effortlessly. "Sorry I got all spooked. But hands off the Heero, 'k?" He exited the room only to poke his head back through the door a second later. "Ummm... Where is it that we were going?"  
  
+  
  
When Heero next opened his eyes, it was to find himself in a very ornate office, reclining against a warm, comfortable object and feeling like he'd been hit by some sort of very large moving vehicle. He meant to ask where he was, but somehow, as he sat up, all that came out was a singularly pained groan.  
  
"Finally awake, sleeping beauty?"  
  
That voice... Heero turned around to find that the warm, comfortable object in question was in fact a faintly amused and disarmingly attractive Zechs Merquise.  
  
"Where's Duo?"  
  
Heero was almost positive there were may other questions that should have come to mind, yet all he could think of was the holographic boy.  
  
Zechs chuckled. "I had no idea you were taken."  
  
"I am not... taken!" Heero sputtered indignantly. "I'm... confused."  
  
It was all coming back to him now, for all the good the entangled memories were worth. He lowered his aching head into his hands.  
  
"And I don't have time for this."  
  
"Forgive me. I did not mean to upset you."  
  
"No..."   
  
Heero found himself on the horns of a dilemma. Something big was going on here. That something had cost the lives of at least six men, and now had his associate and his best friend in its sights. He needed Zechs with a desperation that was almost blinding in its intensity.   
  
But could he trust him?   
  
When he had first looked up into Zechs' sweetly blue eyes back in his cell, he had felt himself inexorably drawn towards the handsome, long-haired man. He realized his reaction was coloured more than slightly by his previous rough treatment, and it was this more than anything that caused him to hold his tongue about Chang's and Quatre's mission, if only for the time being.   
  
He shook his head to clear it, managing only to cause the slow tattoo throbbing in his skull to speed up a notch.   
  
"Where is Duo?" he repeated. He was too sore to be pleased at Zechs' straight answer.   
  
"In the next room. He seems to have a freakish fascination with my computer."  
  
Heero couldn't help but grin, although if asked later he would have had no recollection of having done so. "Don't mind him. Computers are in his blood."  
  
It was when he stood that he noticed he was now attired in navy blue coveralls.   
  
Zechs answered his questioning look. "Your own clothes were a little the worse for wear. I though it best if they were replaced."  
  
Heero felt the blush rising to his cheeks and mentally kicked himself for not being able to stop it. His discomfort was quickly noted and met with Zechs' warm laugh.  
  
"Don't worry. I had very little to do with it. Your friend insisted on doing it himself."  
  
At this, Heero's blush simply flared all the brighter. Zechs diplomatically let it slide, although he found the cobalt-eyed preventer's reaction quite intriguing.  
  
"Follow me."  
  
As soon as he entered the room, he noticed Duo. This in itself was not remarkable _\--_ Duo tended to attract attention to himself, even when he wasn't being charmingly boisterous. The surprising thing was that Duo had not yet noticed him.  
  
"Duo?"  
  
Duo jerked out of his reverie with a snap, practically bounding out of his chair and into Heero's arms. "Heero! You're awake!"  
  
He let himself hold Duo tightly a short moment before regretfully releasing him. "How long was I out?"  
  
"About four hours. Another second or two and I would have become worried."  
  
"Duo, you already _were_ worried," spoke Zechs.  
  
Duo threw a rakish grin at the taller man. "True, blondie, but that was mainly because I left him alone with you."  
  
Things had obviously changed between the two long-haired men since Heero had last been conscious. He was puzzled, but neither of the two seemed to be in a rush to enlighten him.  
  
"I think now would be a good time to hear what Zechs has to say," said Heero.  
  
Duo's expression instantly became serious. "It's an even better time than you think, Heero." He motioned with his head towards the computer behind him. "That's Wing Zero."


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> by Dacia, ** a little piece of gundam wing** archivist extraordinaire ^_~

Chang Wufei was not an impatient man. Waiting was an occupation he had mastered years ago. When others were gnashing their teeth in expectation, he sat calmly knowing that time was something over which he had no control. Which is why he refused to acknowledge his present actions as what they actually were _\--_ pacing.   
  
Quatre reclined gracefully on the bed, watching as his partner prowled the room like a caged tiger.  
  
"Ummm, Wufei?"  
  
"Yes?"  
  
"Want to give it a rest?"  
  
"What?"  
  
Quatre gave him a look that had no need of words.  
  
"Oh. Yeah. Right."  
  
He moved to the foot of the bed and literally collapsed on to it, his eyes gazing sightlessly at the ceiling. He felt he bed move as Quatre crawled down next to him.  
  
"Geez, 'Fei. I've never seen you like this before. You ok?"  
  
The Chinese man sighed, his eyes focusing again. //That really is a very nice tromp l'oeil fresco on the ceiling. Rococo, if I'm not mistaken...//  
  
" _'Fei_ ..."  
  
Wufei sighed. "I do believe I'm nervous Quatre."  
  
"Nervous? You don't get nervous."  
  
"I know. It's almost funny."  
  
"It's Treize, isn't it?"  
  
Wufei pulled Quatre closer to take him in his arms. The eyes which gazed so deeply into his own were steady and cool. He could feel himself sinking into them. When he spoke, his voice was little more than a whisper. "I want him."  
  
He was almost disappointed to not see revulsion in Quatre's face. Wasn't he tainted now? Wasn't this the worst thing he could do? He was a good guy. Good guys did not want bad guys. At least not in his new and all but mind-blowing definition of 'want'.  
  
There was a quiet knock on the door.  
  
"Come!"  
  
Wufei pressed his lips chastely to Quatre's. His words were for Quatre's ears alone.  
  
"You trust me?"  
  
"I hope I'm not interrupting anything."  
  
Quatre felt Wufei's whole body tense at the newcomer's words. His answer was the only gift he had to give. He only hoped it was enough to see him through.  
  
"Implicitly."   
  
He pulled away and moved off the bed to stand up. "No. I was just leaving." With one last look to Wufei, he left.  
  
"What a pretty boy. Is he yours?"  
  
"He's a loaner," answered Wufei, rather truthfully.  
  
He could feel the ginger-haired man's golden gaze travel the length of his body. This man was a born predator and it seemed the hunt was on. Wufei felt a sliver of dread strike dangerously close to his heart at the thought, yet it was a game he had no choice but to play.  
  
"I take it this is 'later'."  
  
He began to sit up only to feel a strong hand press him back down to the bed.  
  
"Don't get up on my account. I like you right where you are."  
  
He followed Treize with his eyes as the older man crossed to the small bar where he proceeded to pour himself a neat scotch.   
  
"You're not what I expected," said Wufei finally.  
  
"No?"  
  
At the press of a button, the room lights dimmed. The golden glow of San Rommell's false sunset bathed the room in a warm glow.  
  
"No."  
  
"What did you expect?"  
  
"I expected this to be a deal like any other."  
  
Treize's hand froze as he lifted the cut glass tumbler to his lips. "You know who I am?"  
  
"I know."  
  
"I see."  
  
Wufei waited calmly though the silence. In the eye of the storm it seemed he had found his fortitude once again.  
  
"I have to admit you're not what I expected, either," Treize said at last.  
  
"And what did you expect?"  
  
He could not possibly have been aware of how his dark eyes glimmered in the orange/red light, nor the effect it was having on the man who even now steadily approached him.  
  
"For you to be like the others."  
  
He allowed Treize to crawl up the bed until the other man hovered above him.  
  
"But you're not, are you."  
  
Wufei's only answer was a smile.  
  
"What I'd like to do with you..."   
  
Treize's words were almost a low growl as he dipped his head to lingeringly taste the lips poised so temptingly beneath his own. After a few heated eternities, he broke the kiss off almost violently.  
  
"Damn..."  
  
Wufei's resulting breathlessness worried him more than slightly. For a split second, it was all he could do to keep himself from pinning Treize to the bed and ravishing him. But he did not, could not, allow his emotions to control him. The coldness of his next words shocked even him.  
  
"First we have business to discuss, ne?"  
  
Treize jerked as if he had been slapped, causing Wufei to immediately regret his words. With an inward sigh, he told himself that it was all for the best.  
  
"Yes. Business." His reply was almost a sneer. "There's a man I think you should meet."  
  
Treize was standing beside him, by this time. Wufei took his offered hand, gasping as the tall man pulled him close. The hardness of his gaze was unmistakable.  
  
"Come with me."  
  
Wufei felt hard pressed to keep up with Treize as he led him through the labyrinthine maze that composed San Rommell's inner workings. Even though his mind was focused on his mission, he could not help the small voice that begged him to make things right between them.  
  
"Treize..."  
  
He grasped the other man's wrist, effectively halting his forward motion. When Treize would not turn to met his eyes, he pushed the taller man against the wall.  
  
"Do you have any idea what it is you're doing to me? Can you possibly understand how hard this is? My god, Treize..."  
  
He kissed him hungrily, moaning softly as he felt Treize respond to his touch. Without breaking contact, Treize flipped them around until it was Wufei whose back was to the wall.  
  
"It wasn't supposed to be like this," he said when at last they broke apart.   
  
Wufei smiled sadly. "But for now it's the way it must be."  
  
"Yes." Treize backed away from the black-haired boy with no small effort. He looked down the hall, as if only now truly seeing their surroundings. "We're here," he said. "Are you sure you want to do this?"  
  
"No." Undercover work was never more perverse than when he had no need to lie. "But I have no choice."  
  
The taller man nodded once, more in recognition of Wufei's words as a universal truth that pertaining solely to this situation. "Neither do I."  
  
The door opened as Treize neared without another word, they both stepped over the threshold.  
  
+  
  
Heero Yuy was impressed. After all, it wasn't every day that an explanation made him _more_ confused. "Let me get this straight," he began. "Zechs Merquise does not exist."  
  
"Exactly." The man he and Duo both referred to as Zechs Merquise grinned encouragingly. He leaned back against his desk, reclining on its hard, defined edge and crossed his arms.  
  
"And San Rommell is little more than a haven for Earth-side entrepreneurs attempting to avoid Earth Sphere Alliance laws."  
  
Duo spun around from his position in front of Wing Zero where he had been since the beginning of this conversation, seemingly oblivious to what had been said.   
  
"If I may..." he broke in.  
  
Zechs raised an inquisitive eyebrow. Heero could tell that the blonde didn't quite know what to make of his braided counterpart. He found that to be a common reaction.  
  
"Be my guest."  
  
"For the past 16 months, the _real_ owner of San Rommell, we'll call him Mr. Ugly, had been amassing an untidy and unwieldy amount of Earthside currency. Not content with shady business dealings and black market finagling, Mr. Ugly decided the best method of obtaining wealth was the old fashioned way _\--_ to take it from someone else. Setting up San Rommell as a haven for morally deficient, financially well-endowed individuals, he lures in six tackily rich men, seduces them into signing over their liquid assets in their entirety, and then disposes of them in a manner which guarantees that neither they nor their physical remains will ever be seen again."  
  
"That's amazing," said Zechs. "How did you figure that out?"  
  
Duo tapped the side of his nose knowingly. "Hell, baby _\--_ you ain't seen nothing yet."  
  
"No," smiled Zechs. "I don't suppose I have."  
  
Heero tried to ignore the fact that Zechs was flirting quite openly with Duo. He was truly amazed at how difficult this was to accomplish.   
  
"That's the 'how'," he said finally. "But that leaves us with quite a few 'whys'."  
  
"Hit me with your best shot." The boy's violet eyes flashed wickedly.  
  
Knowing full well that his creation's statement could be taken one of two ways, he decided on the one that did not call for physical contact.  
  
"Why is he doing this?"  
  
"To upset Earth's economy. By stockpiling earth currency, he is effectively removing it from the market." [4]  
  
Heero nodded. He had supposed as much. He aimed his next question to Zechs. "Any why are _you_ doing this?"  
  
"I was wondering when we'd get around to that." For a man who had just been called upon to explain his own nonexistence, he was singularly unpreturbed. "Let's just say I'm paying the price for all my past misdeeds."  
  
"Blackmail?" questioned Duo.  
  
"In a word."  
  
"And are you the seducer in this little equation?" continued Heero.  
  
"No. I am merely a coordinator. I find I do not have the knack for seduction."  
  
Judging by the blonde's effect on Duoman and, he had to admit, himself, Heero found this hard to believe but accepted it nonetheless. "You don't strike me as the murdering type."  
  
"I'm not, Preventer Yuy. I can assure you. Did it perhaps strike you as rather odd that the San Rommell security contingent knew who you were, Preventer Yuy?"  
  
If Zechs' change of topic had not been enough to draw Heero's attention, his emphasis of his title could not have failed to attract his notice.  
  
"Yes," he agreed, "'Strike' being the operative word."  
  
Zechs grimaced. "Quite. They were prepared for your arrival owing to the simple fact that they were informed you would be coming."  
  
"Sumimasen, blondie," spoke Duo, "but we ourselves had no idea we'd be coming here until we did." He paused, eyes wide. "Is your security force staffed by psychics? That would be _so_ cool..."  
  
"No, my pet. Not exactly." His smile was positively luminous in the face of Duo's unflagging charm. Duo literally basked in its glow. "I have been attempting to contact the Preventers for some time now, a deed made more complicated due to the fact that even though I am publicly Chief of Operations, in actuality I am little more than a figurehead with no real power and no one to trust. When word got out that the Preventers had been informed of what's been going on here, the station went on a general alert. And you, Preventer Yuy, due to your association with Vice Minister Darlien, are perhaps the most recognizable figure in your organization. It is perhaps coincidence alone that you were sent here."  
  
Heero snorted. "Remind me to thank Relena when we get home."  
  
Duo laughed until he was struck by what he considered to be a very disturbing though. "But he _wasn't_ the one sent."  
  
"What do you mean?"  
  
"I mean that Heero is not officially on the case."  
  
Zechs closed his eyes and brought a long fingered hand up to massage his temples. "Truly?"  
  
"Truly."  
  
"This isn't good."  
  
"No?" Heero shared a glance with Duo. Just what was it they had gotten themselves into?  
  
"No," continued Zechs. "This is, in fact, very bad."  
  
"How so?"  
  
"Do you recall me mentioning that I could not trust anyone here?"  
  
"Yes..."  
  
"If that held true _before_ I contacted the Preventers, it applies even more now."  
  
Each passing moment gave Duo more pieces to the puzzle, the fragments falling into place to form a ragged whole.  
  
"You're as much a fugitive as we are."  
  
"Precisely." The blonde man had by now reopened his eyes, though he had still to lose his pained expression. "There's not much I can do now to help your friend. Whether he's been taken as another victim, which I am only supposing was his cover, or he is revealed as an Earth Sphere Alliance Official, I'm afraid he is in great peril."   
  
Duo's grin resurfaced in a shot.  
  
"Somehow," said Heero with an inward groan as he noted Duo's now nearly maniacal features, "I don't think that will be a problem."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [4] You all are gonna have to make due with this. My college level economics class notwithstanding, I really have no idea what the hell I'm talking about. ^_^


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> by Dacia, ** a little piece of gundam wing** archivist extraordinaire ^_~

As soon as Wufei entered the room, he could tell this was all going to end up even messier that he had foreseen. He heard a low laugh from a darkened corner which continued and grew as the minutes passed. Still chuckling, a voice spoke. "Preventer Chang. Imagine meeting you here."  
  
"Imagine," grimaced Wufei.  
  
" _Preventer_ Chang?"  
  
"Yes, my young Treize. _Preventer_ Chang." A man stepped out of the shadows. "Your latest conquest is an honourable Earth Sphere law enforcement officer."  
  
"One of the best and brightest," spoke Wufei. He somehow found this situation ambitiously amusing. If it weren't for the man, who was most likely the love of his life, staring at him with a dazed expression that bordered on horror in addition to the fact that he would most certainly be meeting his maker sometime in the very near future, he would have been laughing his proverbial ass off. As it was, he settled for a small smile.  
  
"Indeed."  
  
"Pardon my naiveté," said Wufei, "But aren't you supposed to be dead, Mr. Dermail?"  
  
"Ah, my dear Preventer Chang. I _was_ dead" A fleeting look of loathing passed over Dermail's otherwise passive features. "At your hand, as I recall."  
  
"Then, how..."  
  
Again, laughter. "It seems that if money cannot buy you love, it can buy you life. I was dead, yes, but not long enough that I couldn't be brought back. I think you might be interested to know that my miraculous recovery was in part due to one of your more _dis_ honourable peers." Dermail sat back in a tall chair behind his desk. "But enough about me. Let's talk about you."  
  
" _Preventer_ Chang..."  
  
Dermail sighed in dignified exasperation at Treize who was apparently still reeling from the unexpectedness of this revelation. "Yes, Treize. _Preventer_ Chang. I can't blame you for your miscalculation. Preventer Chang is indeed one of the best and the brightest. It is by no fault of his own that he finds himself now in somewhat dire straits. He is... a victim of circumstance."  
  
"Aren't we all." [5] Wufei spared a glance at the man he assumed was now lost to him forever. //But then, he was never mine.// "I take it you're feeling betrayed, that you'll now hate me forever, and that you're seriously pissed."  
  
"That would be the logical assumption, yes," replied Treize slowly. At Wufei's disheartened acceptance he could not help but scowl teasingly. "You would, of course, be mistaken."  
  
"Treize has always had a fascination with justice," Dermail explained. "I have yet to weed it out of him." He was interrupted by a knock at the door.  
  
"Come in." At his words, several very imposing men entered.  
  
"But it appears I will not be allowed the pleasure of that, after all." He peered at Wufei curiously. "He seems to have taken quite a shine to you."  
  
"It's the hair," said Wufei. "They always fall for the hair." His heart was hammering wildly in his chest. He was taken aback to realize this was due not to his capture, but to Treize's unexpected reaction.  
  
"I would rather think it was your piercing gaze," replied Dermail dryly. His eyes darkened dramatically. "You do understand your situation, do you not?"  
  
"Of course. You can't have expected me to crawl, Dermail. It's not my style."  
  
Dermail sighed. "No. It never has been. Still... I'll have to see if there's anything I can do about that." He gestured towards them dismissively. "Take them away."  
  
+  
  
"So, it's Preventer Chang, is it?"  
  
Treize and Wufei had been led to a relatively roomy office which now served as their cell.  
  
Wufei nodded. "I'm rather shocked that you're taking this so well."  
  
"You mean because I work for a murderer?"  
  
"Well, you have to admit it doesn't place you in the kindest light."  
  
Treize took a seat opposite Wufei and captured his eyes with an intense gaze. "That would be presupposing that I had a choice."  
  
"And you do not?"  
  
"No. I have not had the luxury of choice for quite some time."  
  
"Dermail can do that to a man."  
  
Treize leaned back, his fingers absently trailing along the arm of his chair. "So I have discovered, though I never would have guessed. He is so nonchalantly evil. One would almost think it was his job. If I may be so bold as to inquire... Just how did you know Dermail. Aside from having killed him, of course."  
  
Wufei tore his gaze away from where Treize caressed the leather under his hand and smiled around the constriction in his chest. Treize's effect on him, rather than diminishing, was growing stronger with each passing moment. If the sensation weren't so disconcerting, he would have found it rather interesting. "Dermail was CEO of one of Earth's largest corporations. Perhaps you've heard if it _\--_ Asgard?"  
  
"Yes, I know it." He pondered this a moment. "As I recollect, they produced and distributed almost inedible space rations. As much as they disgusted me, I hardly think it's cause to kill a man."  
  
Wufei concentrated on breathing. Why was it that a simple conversation with this man was so arousing?  
  
"No," he answered with a chuckle that was almost unnoticeably strained. "That _would_ have been overkill. Dermail also dabbled in designer drugs. He was the largest manufacturer of synthetic narcotics... and also completely untraceable."  
  
"Not _completely_ ," corrected Treize. "You did catch him, in the end."  
  
"Well, I _am_ one of the best and the brightest. When I finally had enough evidence for an arrest, Dermail was not at all... cooperative."  
  
"So you shot him."  
  
"I shot him."  
  
Wufei's eyes flashed with an almost overwhelming fury which Treize could not help but notice. His question remained unasked, but after a few moments Wufei found himself answering it.  
  
"Dermail killed my wife."  
  
"Your... _wife_?"  
  
"Meiran."  
  
They sat in a silence which was verging on uncomfortable when Treize finally spoke.  
  
"And now to find him alive..."  
  
"The irony of it does not escape me. It seems I might very well lose my life to the very man who took my Meiran away from me." Wufei's eyes took on a slightly predatory glow as he stood. "But I've never been one to give in too soon. I have faith in my affinity for survival." He crossed to Treize and straddled his lap. "I also, if I'm not mistaken, have something to live for."   
  
He felt himself encircled my strong arms.   
  
"And whatever gave you that impression?"  
  
In response, Wufei kissed Treize's smirking lips with a delicious intensity that left Treize dazed. Pulling away after an eon of hungry silence, Wufei cocked his head slightly to the right. "Oh, I don't know. It's just a feeling."  
  
+  
  
The man known as Zechs Merquise looked first to Preventer Yuy and then his partner questioningly. "And just what was it that you had in mind?"  
  
"Are you kidding?" snorted Duo. "How can you possibly ask that when we're sitting in the same room as _the_ most powerful computer ever known to man?"  
  
"That it may be," agreed Zechs, "but I have not had access to it for quite some time now. For the past week or so, Wing Zero may as well have been a very expensive paperweight."  
  
Duo's answering laugh was almost unnerving. "As my beloved Hee-chan so eloquently phrased it, I don't think that will be a problem."  
  
//'Beloved Hee-chan'?// "But... how?"  
  
"Ah," sighed the braided youth. "Genius is mysterious." [6] Heero's eyes on him felt less than optimistic and, when he turned back to him, he saw doubt in his cobalt eyes.  
  
"Are you sure, Duo? Can you handle Wing Zero?"  
  
"We'll soon see," he shrugged. "And there's no time like the present. Tell you what _\--_ why don't you and blondie go collect Quatre. I'd feel a lot better if I knew his cute little posterior was out of harm's way. When the chips start to fall, I'm not sure if I'll be able to control it for long."  
  
Heero nodded tersely. He moved until he stood before Duo, kneeling down and leaning in close. "It's possible that Wing Zero may be too much for you."  
  
"It's also possible that the sky might fall tomorrow, but we all can't go running around like Chicken Little. That would just be silly." He ruffled Heero's hair affectionately. "I've got the element of humanity on my side. I think you'll be surprised at what a difference it makes."  
  
"Be careful anyways, Duo. You weren't programmed for anything like this."  
  
"Ne, Heero, haven't you ever heard that we're all more than the sum of our programming?"  
  
Heero snorted in amusement, not the least bit aware of how incredibly endearing he looked while doing so. "Where'd you get _that_ one?"  
  
"ST:TNG."  
  
"Baka."  
  
"Yeah." Duoman smiled sweetly. Heero though he might possibly die from the sugar high. "But I'm _your_ baka."  
  
Duo waited until Heero and Zechs had left before he stood, all traces of his acutely jovial nature absent from his now grim expression.  
  
"All right, Wing. Let's see what you've got."  
  
And he walked into the computer.  
  
+  
  
"Geez, Heero," groaned Quatre as he rubbed a sore arm that he just _knew_ was going to bruise. "Did you have to yank me so hard?"  
  
Heero glowered at him, knowing all the while that his glares of doom had about as much effect on him as the did on Duo _\--_ namely, none. "Yes, I did."  
  
"But no one knows who I am."  
  
"I couldn't be sure of that. Chang's been missing for three hours now. Anything could have happened. Assuring your safety was my primary concern."  
  
"But pulling me over the balcony like that..."  
  
Heero unsuccessfully attempted to smother his smirk."Hey, it worked, didn't it?"  
  
Just then, Zechs reentered the room. He had left the two Preventers in his office _\--_ the only place he could guarantee their safety _\--_ while he had gone to see what he could discover about their comrade.  
  
"Well?" asked Quatre impatiently.  
  
"I have some good news and some bad news. The bad news is that Preventer Chang has indeed been identified and is now being held captive."  
  
"And the good news?" prompted Heero.  
  
"The good news is that he's not alone. It seems my partner has been incarcerated as well and, if I know Treize half as well as I think I do, he has most likely switched sides."  
  
Quatre grinned in spite of himself. "It's the hair," he said. "They always fall for the hair."  
  
"That still leaves us with the rather pressing question of what to do now," continued Zechs who had an odd feeling that Quatre was probably at least partially correct. "Especially since we seem to have lost track of Duo."  
  
"What do you mean?"  
  
"I checked in on him when I returned. He's nowhere to be found."  
  
"Oh, he's here," spoke Heero. "You just have to know where to look. If you'll excuse me..."  
  
Zechs watched him with a quizzical look as he left, but made no move to follow.   
  
Upon entering the computer room, Heero was shocked to feel it so empty. He knew Duo was here, somewhere, but he couldn't help but think that the braided boy was farther away than he could possibly imagine.  
  
"Duo?"   
  
He almost expected an echo.  
  
"Duo??"  
  
He hadn't let himself contemplate until this exact moment that something might have gone wrong. After all, Duoman could do anything because he wasn't real.  
  
"But he _is_ real..."  
  
"You bet your sweet ass I am," came an answering voice.  
  
"Duo!"  
  
When Heero next came to his senses, it was to find himself with his arms locked so tightly around Duo that, if the other boy had indeed needed to breath, he would quite possibly have died of suffocation in the interim.  
  
"So," he said, pulling back slightly with an expression on his face that could best be described as a decidedly uncharacteristic grin, "I see you're ok."  
  
"Yes, 'ok' is definitely the word I would use," spoke Duo. "But, my god, if I _ever_ volunteer to do anything like that ever, _ever_ again, do me a favour and render me unconscious, all right?"  
  
"Sure thing."  
  
"Ummm... Heero?"  
  
"Yes Duo?"  
  
"I never thought I'd be saying this, but do you think you could let go of me now?"  
  
"Oh," said Heero. "Yeah. Right."  
  
As he fully released his hold. He felt a tremor race through Duo's body.  
  
"Damn, baby, but your arms feel good," he whispered.  
  
Rendered speechless, as always, by Duoman's unbridled sensuality, Heero could merely follow as Duo left the room.  
  
"Hey, Kat. Long time, no see." Duo threw himself onto the sofa and snuggled up to a very embarrassed blue-eyed blond. "Still delectable as ever..."  
  
Quatre's face flushed seven shades of red before settling on a pleasing pink.  
  
"Stop teasing Quatre, Duo," admonished Heero. "You know perfectly well how you fluster him. Besides, I thought you only had eyes for me."  
  
Duo blinked two wide, violet eyes, shocked to his core by Heero's recent actions but too downright confused to show it. "Isn't it enough that you have my heart, cookie? Do you claim my eyes as well?"  
  
Zechs' low chuckle filled the resulting silence. Tearing his eyes away from Heero, Duo turned to him.   
  
"It was the 'cookie' thing, wasn't it?"  
  
"That and the fact that you're as cute as a button. But maybe you have something to tell us?"  
  
"Oi, you mean beside the fact that your computer's a bitch?"  
  
"I rather like it."  
  
Duo snorted petulantly. [7] "You would. Take it from me, bud, she's trouble with a capital 'T'. Turn your back once and she'll chew you up and spit you out."  
  
"Duo..." Heero _did_ have a way with words.  
  
"Can't a guy complain? Do you have any idea what a royal pain in the ass that was?" [8]  
  
"Later, Duo. I promise you can complain as much as you want when we get home."  
  
"I'm gonna hold you to that, doll baby," he said. "There's enough data in that computer to put Mr. Ugly away 'til the next ice age. I swear, why people trust that sort of stuff to computers is beyond me..."  
  
Quatre raised an eyebrow at this. "Oh? I know at least one perfectly trustworthy computer."  
  
Duo tightened his hold on the blonde, not even bothering to resist to resist the temptation to nibble on his ear. "Thanks, Kat. But seriously folks," he continued, "his goose is cooked."  
  
"Why do I get the feeling that you're saving the worst for last?" spoke Heero.  
  
"Because you know me too well, Hee-chan. That worst bit would be Mr. Ugly himself _\--_ Duke Dermail."  
  
Heero started at that. Duke Dermail... "But isn't he..."  
  
"Dead?" supplied Quatre. "Last time I checked that was a big a-ffirmative."  
  
"The miracles of modern science will screw you every time," sighed Duo melodramatically. "And Mr. Ugly isn't taking any chances. He's got so much security around Wufei that I'd be surprised if _light_ was getting in."  
  
In the light of what Zechs considered to be very bad news, he nevertheless noted that Duo's grin was growing larger by the second.  
  
"Am I missing something here?" questioned Zechs. "This Wufei is your friend, yes? Why aren't you all more upset?"  
  
"Because we have a secret weapon," answered Heero.  
  
"And that would be?" Zechs looked a tad dubious.  
  
The braided boy looked slightly hurt that there was even need to ask. "Well, you know... _me_."  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [5] Anyone have any idea where this is from?  
> [6] This is from Barbarella, if you didn't catch it...  
> [7] So many ways to snort, so little time...  
> [8] Aren't footnotes fun? But seriously folks... I'm sorry I'm not getting any more detailed than this. In the show, Automan just walked into the computer and came out looking drained. I figure if it's good enough for Automan, it's good enough for me. ^_^


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> by Dacia, ** a little piece of gundam wing** archivist extraordinaire ^_~

When Wufei opened his eyes, the starlight held him spellbound. It was not the stars themselves which affected him so, beautiful thought they might be. It was the glimmer of starlight on the peaceful features of the man whose body was tangled with his own which stole his breath away. Had he ever know true loveliness before he watched starlight sparkle in ginger hair?  
  
Without a sound, he eased himself out from under Treize. As much as he would not have minded remaining in his arms forever, at this moment 'forever' promised to be a much shorter time than it ought to be. His clothes lay scattered over the office. With a little bit of concentrated effort, he found them in the darkness and began to put them on.  
  
"Going somewhere?"  
  
Wufei smiled, unaware of the fact that the starlight made him his own sort of wonder in Treize's watching eyes.  
  
"Gotta be ready to be rescued. Can't go running around in the all together."  
  
Treize pulled himself up to rest on his elbows. "You have great faith in your friends."  
  
The dark-haired man laughed. "You don't know my friends."  
  
His reply was met with a sigh of resignation. "And here I just got used to you _un_ clothed."  
  
"Gods, Treize..."  
  
Wufei crossed to him, kneeling beside the low couch on which he lay and pressing him back down with a lingering kiss.  
  
"You really are too good to be true." He paused a moment, his fingers idly tracing the planes of Treize's perfect features. "He'll use you against me."  
  
"I know."  
  
"Do you regret...?"  
  
"Never."  
  
"I don't suppose I need to tell you what a relief that is."  
  
"Did you ever really doubt?"  
  
"No."  
  
Their quiet moment was shattered by stark light streaming through the now open door.  
  
"And so it begins..." Wufei quickly stood, not before handing Treize his pants, and turned to find Dermail watching them patiently.  
  
"You really do make a charming couple."  
  
"Thank you. I'll make it a point to invite you to the wedding."  
  
Dermail's laugh was of pure enjoyment. "Preventer Chang, you truly are a delight. If circumstances were different... I'd still have to kill you, but I would have more time to savour the pleasure of your company."  
  
"What's your rush?" questioned Wufei. "I have nothing pressing to attend to." He looked back over his shoulder to Treize who was by now at least half dressed. "You?"  
  
"My schedule's wide open."  
  
"That's the thing about dying," spoke Dermail. "It reminds you of your limitations. Never putting off til tomorrow, and so forth."  
  
"Then I suppose there's really nothing more to say."  
  
"Oh, no, Preventer Chang. That is where you are mistaken. I think you'll find you have a great deal more to say."  
  
+  
  
"Duo... Are you sure about this?" Heero asked.  
  
"Oh, c'mon, honey bear, we're already trusting him with our lives. What's this on top of that?"  
  
"A whole heck of a lot," spoke Quatre pointedly. "I hesitate to mention this, seeing as how your ego is inflated enough as it is, but your very existence is indescribably special."  
  
Duoman blushed gracefully. "Awww, Kat. You say the sweetest things."  
  
"It's true," agreed Heero. "That is one of the reasons I have kept you a secret. If you were to fall into the wrong hands, the repercussions could be catastrophic."  
  
"Geez, Heero. Don't be such a pill. It's my opinion that Zechs can be considered good hands." He flashed a suggestive smile. " _Very_ good hands. Besides, it's either tell him or tie him up and stick him in a closet. I'm all for bondage, but I'm thinking that we just might need his help."  
  
Heero was all but certain that if he had enough time he could find the faulty logic in that argument but, as he had been repeatedly reminded, time was running short. He could feel Zechs' light blue eyes resting on him inquiringly and sighed. "All right," said Heero. "But if I find that you have somehow abused this information, I will hunt you down and kill you."  
  
Zechs rolled his eyes. "That goes without saying."  
  
It was Quatre, in the end, who began. "Duo isn't... well, he isn't real."  
  
"Of course," nodded Zechs.  
  
"Hey!" objected Duo. "If I've told you once, I've told you a thousand times, I'm _\--_ "  
  
"Justasrealbutdifferent," rushed Quatre. "I know. But I'm trying to make a point here."  
  
"Duo is a holographic simulation," tried Heero.  
  
"That would have been my next guess," smiled Zechs.  
  
"Methinks yon man isn't taking this at all seriously," said Duo. "Is it time for the whole 'seeing is believing' bit?"  
  
"Perhaps it would make things easier." Heero said reluctantly. It was that little voice inside him that said //Damn it. But I don't _want_ to share//, but now, as always, he ignored it.  
  
Duo removed himself from where he was glued to Quatre's side and crossed to Zechs. Taking his hand, he said, "Now you see it..."  
  
And vanished.  
  
"Now you don't," chuckled Quatre.  
  
When Duo reappeared a few heartbeats later, it was to find a very wide-eyed Zechs Merquise who had apparently forgotten how to breathe.  
  
"I don't have much use for it myself," spoke Duo with a grin, "but I have a feeling some air might be a good thing for you right about now."  
  
"You... You're..."  
  
Duo smiled and ran his hand through Zechs', his molecules so separate that they encountered no resistance. "Kind of cool, ne?"  
  
"But... Demo... You're _not_ real."  
  
Heero and Quatre both groaned in tandem at Zechs' remark.  
  
"Damn it all to hell in a green bucket!! What do I have to do to get you guys to realize _\--_ " He broke off suddenly, a frightening glimmer sparkling in the depths of his violet eyes. Without another word, he leaned down, capturing Zechs' lips with his own and proceeded to kiss him like there was no tomorrow.  
  
"Ummm..." said Quatre as the kiss deepened, Zechs seemingly having come to the conclusion that Duo's existence was no longer in question.  
  
Heero sat frozen in shock, unable to move a muscle, He felt his pulse quicken as he watched the two long-haired young men move against one another. //This is...// Just as his brain thawed sufficiently to allow him to react, Duo and Zechs broke apart.  
  
Duo's low growl affected every man in the room. "Real enough for you?"  
  
Zechs answered with a growl of his own. "I don't suppose we could spare an hour so that you could demonstrate your reality to me more thoroughly..."  
  
Duo looked quite pleased at the prospect."Sure. I don't see why not."  
  
"Duo..."  
  
The braided youth turned to face Heero, collapsing back into Zechs' lap. "Heero, you are _such_ a party pooper."  
  
"And yet so charming and lovable," he rejoined.  
  
"You're the one who programmed him," laughed Quatre.  
  
"Sometimes I wonder," he replied.  
  
"Hey, hey _\--_ I'm in the room, here. I though we had a rule about not talking about me like I'm inanimate."  
  
"Inanimate, you're not," Zechs' low voice cut in.  
  
"Don't encourage him," warned Quatre. "You'll live to regret it."  
  
The older man's answering grin rivaled Duo's in its wickedness. "I'm counting on it."  
  
There was an edge to Duo's enjoyment of this situation that didn't escape his creator's notice. "It's you, isn't it," he said.  
  
"Not entirely." Duo answered the question as if he'd been expecting it for quite some time and was surprised that it had taken so long for it to be asked. "I'm just a catalyst. I'm... inhibiting his inhibitions."  
  
"How?"  
  
"Skin to skin contact. I leak electricity. You might say I've intoxicated him."  
  
The blonde Arabian sat watching this exchange avidly, comprehension slowly dawning on him. "Is that why..."  
  
"You get so flustered around me, Kat?" finished Duo. "In a manner of speaking. I can't plant ideas in your head. Simply put _\--_ the more intimate the physical contact I have with someone, the harder it gets for them to say 'no' to something they already want."  
  
Quatre sighed. "It's better than nothing, I guess. I was hoping it was all you and no me."  
  
"Would that have made you feel better about your response to me?" Duo asked softly. "To have it all taken out of yours hands like that?"  
  
Quatre stared down at his lap. To say yes would be to negate Duo's existence as a vital, thinking, feeling creature. It would relegate him to be defined as a mere collection of 1's and 0's. And both of them knew it.  
  
"No, Duo, it wouldn't," he said after only a moment's hesitation. He smiled at the happiness he had caused to dance in Duo's violet eyes. "I'll just have to keep telling myself what I have all along _\--_ that you really are irresistible."  
  
"That explains it," murmured Zechs. "As much as I hate to say it, beautiful, I think it might be best if you remained out of reach until all of this is behind us. It was bad enough merely wanting you. _Desiring_ you may very well get me killed."  
  
"Can't have that," agreed Duo as he stood. "Not when I have such great plans for you."  
  
"Plans?"  
  
"Yeah, baby. _Plans_. Plans involving you, Quatre... and about 75 San Rommell security guards."  
  
"Ooooh," said Quatre. "Kinky."  
  
"But of course, mon petit. As much as you may look like an angel, we all know you're not. Now's your chance to prove it."  
  
"What do you need me to do?"  
  
"Thanks to my inherent... me-ness, getting in won't be as impossible as it should be, but getting out with our hides intact will be another matter altogether. It'd be a heck of a lot more do-able if maybe some of the guards present when we go in are _not_ present when we come out."  
  
"Sounds easy enough," said Quatre with a small nod. "What?" he continued at Zechs' wondering glance. "There's only 75 of them."  
  
Duo laughed. "I don't need to remind you, blondie, that appearances can be deceiving."  
  
He stretched his arms over his head, wiggling his fingers and releasing blue sparks of energy that had built up during his play with Zechs. They hung in the air about him, settling over him gently like glowing snowflakes. Heero's eyes followed the rain of sparks until he found himself drowning in Duo's blissful sigh. With an effort that was almost painful, he returned his wandering thoughts to the matter at hand.  
  
"That takes care of Quatre and Zechs," said Heero. "What about me?"  
  
"You, Heero? You, my beauty, are coming with me."  
  
The braided youth came closer. Heero had only second to wonder if his inability to move was due to Duo or himself before he felt a light touch on his shoulder.  
  
"Or, rather, you're coming _in_ me."  
  
+  
  
It wasn't until the seventh or eighth blow that he began to feel the pain. At each sound of flesh meeting flesh so violently, he felt himself tearing to pieces. The agony of hazel eyes left him breathless and at last he could not help but speak.  
  
"Why are you doing this? You know I won't talk."  
  
Dermail's quiet eyes turned to him. "Yes," he said. "I think I do know. But if anything could get you to break, it would be this." He let his attention be drawn back to the screen where his men were for a moment still over Treize's fallen body. "Maybe I just want to see you cry."  
  
Wufei struggled mindlessly against the ropes holding him secure to the chair, the rough fibers digging deeply enough into his skin at his frantic movements that his wrists were soon torn and bloody. When he spoke, his voice was at a stark contrast to his actions, his words all but lifeless.  
  
"I don't cry."  
  
Dermail nodded. "Not even when Meiran died. But then her death was so quick and painless." He gestured towards the monitor from which they watched a choreography of torment play itself out before them. "His will not be."  
  
Treize let out a low moan, the first to escape his lips, as his captors roughly stripped him bare.  
  
"No..." Wufei's cry was hardly more than a whimper as he realized their intentions. "Please... no..."  
  
He felt Dermail's cold appraising gaze drift over him, clinical and emotionless. "Really, Preventer Chang. You've only just met the man. He may not have worked for me by choice, but there is a reason he is so good at what he does."  
  
Wufei barely heard Dermail's words as Treize began to struggle futilely, his disobedience earning him only a swift jab to his already abused stomach. After a few moments of laboring to free himself, Wufei collapsed back in his chair, his eyes squeezed shut. "Please..."  
  
"Relax, Preventer Chang. There is so much more to come before the final humiliation. Collect yourself." Dermail sat with his hands steepled before him as he absorbed Wufei's impassioned pleas, pleased beyond measure at the results of his experiment. "Interesting..."  
  
+  
  
"Pardon me?"  
  
The astonished query came from Zechs. Heero himself could hardly manage a scandalized blink or two.  
  
"Get your head out of the gutter, blondie." Duo rolled his eyes eloquently. "As much as I covet Heero's affections, he really is as yet too uptight to recognize the fact that making love to me does not fall under the category of taking advantage of me." He smiled sweetly as Heero closed his eyes and let out an abashed groan. "Don't worry, honey. You'll come 'round. What I was suggesting is a way to get you to Wufei without, say, being torn into gooey bits by hostile gunfire. I'll carry you inside me."  
  
Heero laid his embarrassment aside as he began to comprehend just what exactly it was Duo was proposing. "You can do that?"  
  
"I don't see why not. The theory is sound."  
  
"I don't understand," spoke Quatre. "What do you mean?"  
  
Duo crossed his arms, his brow furrowed in concentration as he attempted to find the words to explain what was in reality an unbelievably complicated concept.  
  
"Ever had a peanut M &M [9], Kat?"  
  
"Of course."  
  
"Think of Heero as the peanut and me as the candy coating."  
  
"Oh." The Arabian sat back, his eyes wide. " _Oh_. I get it. That's so _cool_."  
  
"Isn't it, though," Duo agreed.  
  
"You've done this before?" questioned Zechs.  
  
"Not exactly, but today seems to be my day for first times. It does, however, mean that our timing will have to be spot on. The amount of energy required to pull this off will be substantial. I'm a little powerhouse, sure, but I won't be able to keep it up for long."  
  
"But won't you simply be... covering him?" wondered Quatre. He had only just gotten used to the whole candy coating idea.  
  
"Not quite. While we're together, we'll be... melded." He laughed at the blonde's confused expression. "Have you ever known anything I do to be simple, Kat? Explaining what will really happen would most likely take the better part of a fortnight, and that's not including the year or so required to get you fluent in particle physics."  
  
"What do I need to know?"  
  
"That's my Heero _\--_ always getting right to it. To put it in a nutshell, my electrical impulses will mimic and supersede your own. You'll feel like a puppet _\--_ following my exact actions. It might be uncomfortable for you to let yourself be guided like that, but don't try to pull away too soon. The connection will be definitively fragile. If you fight me, it'll be broken. While you're inside me _\--_ " and he couldn't help but pause to grin at his own phrasing, " _\--_ you'll be able to do what I can do, for a limited time and at a limited level. As long as I have enough power, the environment will see you as it sees me _\--_ as a loose web of energy."  
  
Heero nodded once in understanding. "Sounds imminently unstable."  
  
"And don't you go thinking it won't be," replied Duo quite seriously. "While we're connected, I can protect you. Once we're separate, you're on your own."  
  
"What about the surveillance system?"  
  
His companion's grin was a frightening thing to behold. " _What_ surveillance system? Wing Zero is little more than a series of souped-up video recorders at this point. In the process of breaking into her encrypted systems, I caused her to suffer a major systems scramble _\--_ kind of like a stroke. Right now, she's responding automatically, but is actually about as useful as a talking toaster. [10] Given enough time, obviously someone will notice, which is another reason why time is _not_ on our side, here."  
  
"So what are we waiting for?" said Zechs.  
  
"I love a man who's always ready."  
  
Heero knew he wasn't mistaken this time _\--_ Duo _was_ purring. The problem wasn't the purring itself. Heero might have created Duo, but the braided boy had long ago become his own being, in every sense of the word. He could not put his finger on just when he had ceased to think of Duo as an 'it', but the fact remained that he respected him as a partner as well as a human being, which he undoubtedly was despite his mechanical origins. In the past few months he had come to care for Duo more than anyone else who had ever passed through his life. And _that_ was the problem. A man who did not readily connect with people had no real need of emotions, and Heero had admittedly avoided them on purpose. Emotions were messy, distracting, and painful. But now there was this violet-eyed boy in his life, by his side, making himself irreplaceable and stirring up feelings within him that, quite frankly, disturbed him to no end. It was this thought that prompted him to ask his next question.  
  
"Duo..."  
  
"Yes, Heero?  
  
Those eyes could knock him into next week from across a room. Just being this near to him had caused his blood to surge in his veins until even his fingertips felt warmed. "If being close to you is enough to make grown men cry, what will being inside you do to me?" The images his words inspired literally caused his pupils to dilate.  
  
"Ne, Hee-chan, you worried?"  
  
"Shouldn't I be?  
  
Duo's smile was the warmest he had ever seen it, but it was a chill that ran through him at the sight of it.  
  
"Have I ever misled you, Heero?" Duo didn't expect an answer. He didn't need one. "Then I guess you'll just have to trust me. You are going to be _part_ of me, love. I'll affect you only to the extent that you affect me." He held out his hand to his blue-eyed creator. "Now let's you and me take these gorgeous guys and get this party started right."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [9] Who knew M&M's would still be around? Better buy your stock now...  
> [10] Don't tell my you guys haven't seen 'Red Dwarf', Sha -- what's this world coming to? ^_~


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> by Dacia, ** a little piece of gundam wing** archivist extraordinaire ^_~

Wufei had long ago ceased to move or speak. Whatever his reactions, the man who had so easily stolen his heart was beaten down over and over until his blood fell freely on the cold surfaces of the room into which he had been taken only an hour before. If he could not stop the torment, he could at least shorten it. And so he sat quietly, watching with both eyes wide open as his lover cried and did not say a word or shed a tear. He could feel Dermail's eyes on him, but ignored their silent goading as he did all else. The Chinese Preventer forced himself to breathe evenly, locked his anger and pain into the calm beating of his heart, concentrated on the great expanse of blackness welling up in his soul. [11]   
  
Dermail sighed, already tired of the game. He turned to his right and, pressing a button on the console next to him, played his last card. "Now," he said.  
  
The men surrounding Treize looked towards the camera grimly, acknowledging this latest command. They pulled the ginger-haired man from the floor almost gently and stood him in front of the iron table occupying the center of the room, pushing him down until his chest was pressed flat against it.  
  
"Only the last..." commented Dermail dryly. [12]  
  
Wufei heard the words through a dim fog, at first not comprehending their meaning. "Only..."   
  
His breathing faltered, his heartbeat increasing as he stared blankly at the screen before him. He growled low in his throat, so quietly that Dermail registered the sound as anxiety itself, not recognizing the source. It was only after his men secured Treize that he pinpointed the cause of the pressure growing behind his eyes and by then it was too late. Barely perceiving the flurry of movement that flashed across the monitor, he heard the ropes snap just as the light went out.  
  
+  
  
Zechs followed closely after Quatre, vaguely surprised that the smaller man could move so quickly in such an effortless manner.  
  
"Are you sure we're headed in the right direction?"  
  
"You should know, Zechs. This _is_ your station."  
  
"Ah, yes. Level 42. I'm well acquainted with it."  
  
Quatre eyed the taller man with amusement. "Sarcasm suits you, sir."  
  
"Thank you. But you still haven't answered my question."  
  
"If you must know..."  
  
"I must, I must." [13]  
  
"I have been blessed with a photographic memory when it comes to spatial relationships."  
  
"Sounds like you're a handy guy to have around."  
  
"You'd better believe it." He stopped suddenly, holding up a hand to forestall the question he could see forming on Zechs' lips and peered around the corner they had just come to. "Now this," he whispered, "looks interesting."  
  
Zechs raised a questioning eyebrow.  
  
"Guards," said Quatre in answer to Zechs' silent query. [14] "A very conspicuous number of very alert looking guards."  
  
"Shall we endeavor to discover what it is they hold in such high regard?" asked Zechs chivalrously.  
  
"Yes," replied Quatre with his angel's smile firmly in place. "Let's."  
  
And he stepped around the corner with the taller blonde hot on his heels, running hell for leather toward what turned out to be eight obligingly astonished guards. Zechs had just managed to take out the nearest two with a combination of kicks and jabs that would have done the American Ninja proud when he turned to find the blonde angel standing calmly in the midst of six inarguably unconscious men.   
  
"How...? When...?" Unable to express his amazement more articulately, he settled for a brilliant smile. "Quatre, you're an animal."  
  
"Oh that? This is nothing. You should see me in bed." [15] He gestured towards the now unguarded door. "Shall we?"  
  
"After you."  
  
Pressing the console on the wall, Quatre stepped smoothly inside as the door slid open. What he found was enough to make his blood boil and it was a ridiculously short time later that four more San Rommel security personnel joined their comrades in unconsciousness. It was as he and, soon after, Zechs approached Treize's still and bloodied form that the lights went out.  
  
+  
  
They had seen the blonde pair off scant moments ago. Heero had no qualms about sending the deceptively fragile boy into what would be more than likely a very violent situation. He spared a small grin in spit of himself _\--_ for all Quatre strove for peaceful solutions, his combat capabilities were almost second to none.  
  
"He might as well have been cracking his knuckles," laughed Duo. "That little guy is one eager beaver."  
  
"I think he's just glad to finally be _doing_ something," replied Heero.  
  
"I couldn't agree more," said Duo as he turned to him, looking him squarely in the eye.   
  
Heero remembered as if it were yesterday the first time he had seen Duo's eyes. He hadn't meant them to be violet. Nobody had violet eyes. Violet eyes were unnatural. They had been designed to be blue. It was the first of many things about Duo that were a surprise to him _\--_ his long hair, his quick smile, his propensity for bad puns... But it was Duo's eyes that had been the beginning. His impossible... violet... eyes...  
  
"Heero? Yo, Heero."  
  
Heero jerked to awareness, startled both by his slight lapse and the lucid blush that now so bewitchingly adorned Duo's cheeks. It took him a a moment to become aware of the fact that he had been staring and a moment more to realize why they were both now so flushed.  
  
"You ok?"  
  
"Sure."  
  
//One word answer. Not a good sign.// "Cuz I really think we should be going."  
  
"Ok."  
  
It didn't take a single one of Duo's non-human senses to note that Heero, despite his words, was not moving...  
  
"Sometime soon."  
  
That he was actually quite still...  
  
"You scared, Heero?" asked Duo quietly.  
  
Heero blinked. 'Scared' was a word which he had never in his life applied to himself, but the more he thought about it, the more the word seemed to describe exactly what was swirling around his insides. 'Scared', it appeared, wasn't nearly enough. Elaboration was called for.  
  
"Petrified."  
  
"Of me?"  
  
"Of losing myself."  
  
"Heero," Duo chided affectionately."If anything, You'll be more yourself than you ever have been." He smiled ironically. "Just different."  
  
Heero nodded. If it all had to come down to something, it would be trust and he trusted Duo implicitly. "What do I do?"  
  
"Just... walk into me."  
  
The cobalt-eyed preventer moved towards him slowly, his muscles tensing as he drew nearer and nearer still, unable to prevent himself from drowning in violet eyes as his legs worked on auto-piolt. It was just at the moment when their lips should have met that Duo's solid form lost its cohesiveness, allowing Heero to share the same space as the holographic wonder.   
  
It was like walking into the wind. It was cool and alive. It pushed towards him and drove against him until it went *through* him. And then there was stillness. Silence. Nothing and everything all in one instance of timelessness and impossible clarity. [16]  
  
<<It's OK, Heero. Just breathe>>  
  
Duo's voice came to him more as a palpable force than a sound. He took an experimental breath, feeling the air move into lungs that were no longer substantial.  
  
*click*  
  
It came to him in an instant. What he was doing. What he _was_. And when that realization dawned on him, he knew that he could never, _would_ never, be quite what he had been before.   
  
He raised his hand, Duo's hand, examining it minutely, noting how the light at once reflected off of his/Duo's skin and yet passed through it.  
  
<<Kinda neat, huh>>  
  
[[ Duo... ]]  
  
Heero moved his/Duo's hand to his/Duo's face, feeling and not feeling the smoothness of skin on skin, thrilling to the miraculous newness of touch.  
  
<<I think maybe I'd better control our bodies for now, ne Heero?>> Duo's amusement bubbled through him and Heero almost writhed at the sensation. <<You keep this up and we'll be here all day>>  
  
Heero had thought that having another man control his body would make him feel violated, yet as Duo began to move them he felt strangely calm.  
  
[[ Duo? ]]  
  
<<Yes?>>  
  
[[ I... ]]  
  
Duo could sense Heero's confusion, his comprehension, the child-like delight that he tried so hard to hide It thrilled him beyond measure to have Heero become part of him in such an intimate manner, but he knew this was not the time to give in to his desires to sink into Heero as Heero had sunk into him.  
  
<<Don't worry about it now, love. We've got a job to do. After we're done, you can expound on this experience to your heart's content>>  
  
[[ While you complain? ]]  
  
Duo's laughter was almost enough to undo him and he was supremely relieved that Duo was directing their movement. Otherwise, his subsequent weak-kneed state would have had him collapsing in a most un-preventer like manner.  
  
Getting to Wufei was, indeed, embarrassingly easy. It merely involved walking through a few walls.  
  
<<Don't worry>> Duo had said. <<Think of it as really thick air>>  
  
Heero had merely given the metaphysical equivalent of a snort and had closed his no longer quite tangible eyes, forcing himself to relax as his mind contemplated exactly what the results would be if he were to be separated from Duo during this maneuver. Funny thing was, with his eyes closed it _did_ feel like really thick air. He had always considered Duo's predilection for somewhat odd and seemingly overly dramatic descriptions to be little more than theatrical exaggeration, but now he couldn't help but wonder... He did not, however, have much time to spend pondering. Sooner than he would have thought possible, Duo stopped.  
  
<<We're there>>  
  
[[ There? ]]  
  
The room Duo had brought them to was suspiciously empty.  
  
<<Well, not _there_ there, but 'there' enough that we should be prepared for when we _really_ get there. Which would be on the other side of that wall >>  
  
[[ Prepared? ]]  
  
<<What are you, love? An echo?>>  
  
Heero was ready for Duo's chuckle this time. He let it wash over him and through him, only slightly dazed by the warmth in engendered in what he tentatively named his soul.   
  
<<What would happen if Wufei saw us walk through the wall?>> He continued only a moment later, sure of the most likely results even if Heero was not. <<Bad things would happen, Heero. Bad, untoward, and downright pernicious things>>  
  
[[ A distraction? ]] Forcing words out was proving a far more difficult task than he would have imagined. He was all but positive that this was in part due to his stubborn and continued disability to not ruminate upon the fact that he no longer literally possessed lips with which to speak.  
  
<<My thoughts exactly. And you know humans _\--_ nothing gets them agitated like a little darkness >>  
  
Heero watched as Duo directed a thin stream of energy to the computer console mounted on he wall. It was as he realized that this was not merely a display of force but a burst of raw communication that the lights went out.  
  
<<Now is when the fun starts. Be ready>>  
  
Duo slid them through that wall much more quickly than he had before. Heero had just begun to recover from the experience when he felt himself being pushed back into his own reality. He dropped to the floor, a small groan escaping his lips as his cells reintegrated and his atoms realigned. The first breath he took nearly choked him, but the second was much easier.  
  
"Air," he said raggedly, "is a good thing." He didn't sound particularly convinced. The lights snapped back on with a vengeance while he was still attempting to remember how to walk.  
  
"Ummm, Heero?" came Duo's questioning voice.  
  
"Yes?"  
  
"Do we want Mr. Ugly alive or dead?"  
  
Heero grimaced as he pulled himself upright. "Alive, preferably."  
  
"Then maybe you should restrain Wufei."  
  
It was only then that the strange, garbled noises Heero had been hearing registered themselves in his brain as the unmistakable sound of someone being strangled. Knowing he could not match Wufei for strength in his enraged state [17], Heero moved to stand behind him and gently called his name.  
  
"Wufei," he said. "Wufei -- this won't bring her back."  
  
"Her spirit calls for blood," replied Wufei through clenched teeth.  
  
"Meiran never called for anything more than a good pot of tea," said Heero. "There are other ways to end this. Ones that don't involve you getting kicked out of the Preventers. Who would I trust with Quatre?"  
  
At the mention of his partner's name, Wufei flashed back to sanity, releasing Dermail who fell alive yet unconscious to the floor. "Is he --"  
  
"He's fine."  
  
" _More_ that fine, I'll have you know," came Quatre's disembodied voice.  
  
Heero's eyes followed Wufei's as the Chinese man turned to the monitor which had so recently encompassed his entire world.  
  
"Can't say the same for Treize."  
  
"Is he going to be all right?" Wufei's voice sounded altogether too fragile, even to his own ears, but he was at this point too emotionally drained to care.  
  
"He should be fine," spoke Zechs as he came to stand behind the shorter blonde. "Most of the damage was orchestrated merely to look bad _\--_ more bruises and lacerations than anything else. He's lost a fair amount of blood, though. It'd be best if he got some medical attention sooner than later." His lips curved in a small, fleeting smile. "Treize always did have a fondness for a bit of medical attention."  
  
Such a familiar tone from a man who was, to Wufei, a virtual stranger _far_ too attractive for his own good, set the dark-haired man on edge, yet he could not help but recognize the fact that there was nothing he could do about it. "Can you get him out ok?"  
  
"It'll be touch and go. He can't walk on his own. Carrying him will slow us down. Luckily, we will be accompanied by the human dynamo. " He laid a hand on Quatre's shoulder who blushed slightly at the compliment. "However, any help you could send our way, say, in the form of a gorgeous violet-eyed marvel would be greatly appreciated."  
  
"Roger that," replied Heero. "We've got Dermail here. I'll send the marvel to you and he'll lead you to the safest shuttle bay. We'll meet you there. Heero out."  
  
"I suppose that's my cue to skedaddle," spoke Duo, sounding not at all happy with Heero's decision.  
  
"Duo..."  
  
"Duo?" Wufei eyed Duo warily, trying to place him and, suddenly, succeeding. "Quatre's friend. Quatre's very _close_ friend."  
  
"That would be me. "He grinned provocatively as he moved closer to Wufei, noting the boy's already rapid heartbeat increasing at his approach. He didn't stop until he was near enough that they should have been touching, but were somehow not. His lips hovered so closely to Wufei's ear that he could feel the Chinese boy shivering. "He'll be ok," he said. "Everything will be ok." He pulled back, reaching out to finger Wufei's jet back tresses. " _Definitely_ the hair."  
  
Wufei was literally rendered speechless.  
  
"Duo, stop it."  
  
"What?" It was when he broke out into his angelic grin that Duo seemed his most devilish.  
  
"Leave Wufei alone. He's had a hard day."  
  
"Roger, that," said Duo mockingly. "Guess I'll just be on my way."  
  
"They need you, Duo." Heero's voice was soft and low, tinged with an emotion that he couldn't give a name to.  
  
Duo walked to the door, opening it with a thought. He paused, but didn't look back. "I know they need me, Heero. I just thought maybe you might need me, too." And then he was gone.  
  
It wasn't until moments later that Heero found the strength to answer. "I do, Duo, I do."  
  
Out in the hall, Duo smiled and disappeared.  
  
+  
  
"I'm good, but I can't keep this up indefinitely." Quatre grimaced as he wiped the blood off his knuckles, his other hand moving to test his jaw which had been on the receiving end of a guard's particularly lucky blow. "It'd help if you could speed things up a bit."  
  
Zechs staggered under Treize's dead weight."What say _you_ carry the large, unconscious, blood-slicked man and _I_ run interference for a while," he countered.  
  
Quatre attempted his patented smile, but ceased quickly with a rapid intake of breath as he realized how painful that would now prove to be. "Touché." He turned to continue their stealthy progress only to find himself nose to nose with Duo. He jumped back with a start, hand raised to his chest. "Geez, Duo. What are you trying to do? Give me a heart attack?"   
  
"Not at all, Kat," purred Duo. "Fact is, you look incredible when you're startled _\--_ your cheeks get flushed, your pupils dilate, your lips slightly part... I like to think you look just like that when you _\--_ "  
  
"I'm going to cut that comment to the quick before I drop my burden and sexually assault you right here in the hallway," broke in Zechs.  
  
Duo tore his gaze away from Quatre and brought his violet eyes to Zechs' icy blue ones. "Need a hand there, beautiful?"  
  
"I would greatly appreciate some assistance, yes," came a low-pitched response. He groaned in relief as Duo gently took Treize's limp form from him, cradling the beaten man to his chest with a noticeable absence of effort. "Anyone ever tell you you're a godsend?"  
  
"Yes," grinned Duo. "But I never tire of hearing it. Now, if you gentlemen would just follow me..."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [11] Scream!!  
> [12] This is really, really odd, but I took this bit from the last line of Sondheim's "A Little Night Music"...  
> [13] This one's from "Blazing Saddles". Don't look at me like that... It all works well in my head...  
> [14] You know, it's only when I type this stuff up that I realize how godawful it is... >_<  
> [15] I've been simply *dying* to use that line. ^_~  
> [16] They never explained even the least little bit of how this worked in the show, so you're just gonna have to forgive me if this seems vague and/or insipid...  
> [17] AU remember? People in RL aren't genetically modified, even if is *is* an Automan RL.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> by Dacia, ** a little piece of gundam wing** archivist extraordinaire ^_~

Heero leaned back against that wall, allowing himself to slide down it 'til he met the floor.   
  
"I think I'm getting too old for this."  
  
Every ache and pain that he had been doing his best to ignore had abruptly come to the fore. He had an uneasy feeling that underneath his utilitarian garb every inch of his body was bruised and, as much as he hesitated to admit it, it hurt like hell. Wufei's reply was as unexpected as it was consoling.  
  
"You and me both." The Chinese man collapsed bonelessly next to him. "I think when we get home I'll take that vacation I've been putting off for..."  
  
"Forever?" supplied Heero. "I've never known you to take time off. "  
  
"You're one to talk," snorted Wufei. "There were times I thought we were in some sort of competition for who could work the hardest."  
  
Heero knew better than to deny the remark, though he had not consciously been aware of the truth of the statement until now.   
  
"It would be good to get away," he said. "To not be beaten into submission for no reason..."  
  
"To not see your lover's blood staining his pale skin... Yes, It would be good to get away."  
  
"Lover?"  
  
Wufei had the decency to blush. He had not forgotten that not long ago Treize had been his enemy, nor the fact that it had, after all, been less than a day since they had met. "Hai. You know me, Heero. I never pull my punches."  
  
"He appears to be a good man," commented Heero.  
  
Wufei raised an inquisitive eyebrow.  
  
In reply to his unspoken question, Heero said one word. "Zechs."  
  
"Ah, yes. The golden beauty." His attempt to keep the jealous tone out of his voice might have worked if he had been talking with anyone else.  
  
"It's over between them. You must know that. It's been over for quite some time. Zechs has set his sights on... another."  
  
"Duo?"  
  
Heero choose that moment to find his hands intensely fascinating. He studied them as if he had never even imagined such a complicated joining of blood and bone could possibly exist. "Hai."  
  
"Are you ok with that?"  
  
"You don't miss a beat, do you?"  
  
"It goes along with not pulling my punches. But you didn't answer my question. Do you mind?"  
  
"Strangely, no."  
  
"But don't you..."  
  
"So much that it hurts."  
  
"Oh."  
  
Heero looked up just in time to catch Wufei's wry smile.   
  
"I respect you a lot, Heero. I even like you. But there are some things about you I just _don't_ need to know."  
  
Heero couldn't help but laugh. He laughed so deeply, it became a pain to add to all his others. He laughed for the suffering he'd endured, the sorrow and the confusion. He laughed until his eyes teared and still he could not stop.   
  
Wufei watched Heero with what might have been termed affection if they had known each other better. "Was it something I said?"  
  
Beside them, Dermail began to stir, bringing both of the young men back to their senses.   
  
"I would have thought he would stay out longer," commented Heero as he stood, the picture of grace and ease as he relegated his pain to some future time when he could allow himself to give into it without endangering the lives of those near and dear to him.  
  
"He's a tough bastard," replied Wufei.  
  
"I have no doubt of it." He nudged the old man with his foot, none too gently. "Up."  
  
Dermail opened his eyes.... and smiled. "Alpha. Beta. Omega."  
  
His tone was not that of a defeated man and it was this more than his indecipherable words that caused Heero's shackles to rise. "What was that?"  
  
"That, my dear Preventer Yuy, was me, winning."  
  
As he spoke, the lights flashed from white to red, bathing their surroundings in a bloody glow as an alarm siren began to wail.   
  
Wufei looked down on Dermail, unfazed by the activation of what was, in all probability, a self-destruct device that would blow them all to hell and back in the very near future. "Why is it that you winning always amounts to death and destruction?"  
  
Dermail shrugged. "It's amusing."  
  
"Don't get too excited. We're not dead yet."  
  
"Aren't you, Preventer Chang? You have less than 15 minutes until a very powerful explosive renders this station into unsalvageable wreckage. Even if you were not 42 levels deep into its interior, you could not put enough distance between yourself and San Rommel to survive."  
  
"Shut him up, will you?" interrupted Heero. "He's beginning to aggravate me."  
  
Wufei nodded once in agreement before sending a very stunned Dermail back to unconsciousness with a swift and well-placed kick. He was satisfied to know that, if nothing else, Dermail had not seen that coming.  
  
"Damn. Just when I was going to take time off, too. I do believe life is laughing at me."  
  
"Not laughing at you, Wufei. Merely goading you. Give me a hand." He leaned down to grab Dermail's pinioned arms. "We're getting out of here."  
  
"So we can die in the hallway?" wondered his Chinese counterpart.   
  
"We're not going to die, Wufei. Duo will save us."  
  
"Duo?" Wufei did not sound convinced.  
  
"Aa. He's more than meets the eye."  
  
"Even more than that? You're a lucky man, Heero."  
  
Heero flashed him a shameless grin. "I know."  
  
+  
  
"You know, _this_ is what I get for hanging around with Preventers. I could be home discussing metaphysics with the toaster oven's AI but _no_ ooo, I'm deep in the middle of a sugar-spun _hellhole_ that's about to explode into a fiery ball of twisted metal."  
  
"Duo..."  
  
"I've been a good boy, done everything a good hologram should do..."  
  
" _Duo_ ..."  
  
"Can't a guy get a break?"  
  
Duo had been ranting nonstop since the sirens had started and it was only after considering all the options laying before him that Zechs made his decision. Leaning past Treize, who still lay dead to the world in Duo's arms, he kissed the braided boy with every ounce of feeling he could muster, effectively cutting short his tirade. [18] Quatre looked on, literally seeing sparks fly in the red-tinged darkness where the two met. When Zechs finally pulled away, he was panting from the effort it took to remind himself firmly that now was _not_ a good time.  
  
"What was that for?" Duo asked as he licked his lips. Zechs tasted vaguely of... watermelon? He doubted he had ever known anything as sweet.  
  
"It was either that or slap you," answered Zechs. "Kissing you promised to be more fun."  
  
"No argument there. I'm guessing this means I'm supposed to save the day again."  
  
"If you wouldn't mind," said Quatre sweetly.  
  
"It's not that I mind, Kat, it's that I don't know if I _can_."  
  
"Pardon?"  
  
"Quatre, do you remember me saying something about having fried Wing Zero's circuits? Well, that was a necessary understatement. Wing Zero is toast. But not dead toast. Living, breathing toast."  
  
"I'm afraid you've lost me there," frowned Quatre, raising his voice so as to be heard over the alarm.  
  
Duo grimace, growling as he jerked his head smartly to the left. The resulting silence echoed in their ears nearly as loudly as the sirens had.  
  
"Think of Wing Zero as a brain. A _human_ brain whose higher brain functions have been effectively terminated. But just because she can't think doesn't mean she's defenseless. Hacking into her was _the_ hardest thing I have _ever_ done. I swear I will see you die slowly if you ever tell Heero this, but I barely made it out. Now that she's been compromised, she'd little more than an undeveloped child, but one that will strike out at anything she sees as an invader with all the force she can muster. Going into her the first time, I didn't know what I was getting myself into. Now I know exactly what it is that I left behind. I... I don't know if I can do it again, Kat."  
  
Quatre and Zechs were stunned and belittled by Duo's heartfelt confession. Both of them, in their own fashion, cared for Duo, of that there was no doubt, yet still they had relied on him to such an extent that he might have been just another handy tool that they might use if ever they had need. While there was no denying that Duo was a force to be reckoned with, somewhere along the line he had become human. And he was scared.  
  
"Duo..." Quatre approached him slowly, noting that even in this hellish light Duo's eyes were the shade of spring violets. He motioned for Duo to lay Treize down and, after he had done so, nestled into his arms. "Oh, Duo, I'm sorry. I didn't know. I thought it was all easy for you. I had no idea..."  
  
Duo wrapped his arms around his friend and rested his chin on his shoulder. "It's ok, Kat. I wasn't going to tell you. You didn't need to know and I thought it wouldn't matter. I thought it was over. Going back into her... I know I have to do it, Kat, but, my god, I don't want to. If it were just me, I think I'd rather die." He held the blonde tighter, careful not to hurt him yet needing this closeness now more than ever. "But it's not just me. It's you and the beauty over there whose touch is more electrifying than I am. Hell, there's even this unconscious man at our feet who's apparently the true love of a guy I've only met once. And..."  
  
"And Heero."  
  
Duo pulled back. "Hai. Don't give me those puppy dog eyes, Kat. I'll be fine. You know me. I can do anything." He winked slyly and Quatre could not help but smile. "But do me a favour, will you kitten? If... well... if I'm not around to do it, could you give Heero this for me? I'd have blondie over there do it, but I think it'd just confuse Heero. He's... he's too sweet for his own good, believe it or not."  
  
With these words, he leaned forward and gently covered Quatre's lips with his own. The kiss was so tender and loving that Quatre felt he might cry. The moment eventually had to end. When it did, both wished it might have been otherwise.  
  
"Give him that, Kat, and tell him... hell, tell him whatever you want. You were always better with words than I was. Maybe you won't even need to. Maybe I'm getting freaked over nothing and it'll be a piece of cake. And if I _do_ catch you kissing Heero there'll be hell to pay cuz you are just _way_ too damn good at it."   
  
He released Quatre in such a way that the smaller boy might never have known exactly how much it cost him if he hadn't noticed the difference in Duo's wreckless grin.   
  
"Mind you, I'm expecting one hell of a reward when we get home." He looked down to Zechs who sat on the floor with Treize's head cradled in his lap. He moved closer to Quatre once more, breathing in the scent of him. "And tell blondie there I like to be on top."  
  
It was as a pair of hazel eyes finally opened that Duo faded away, almost as if he had never been.  
  
+  
  
Duo's face was an emotionless mask as he strode to the room housing Wing Zero's main terminal. Despite the assurances he had given Quatre, he was sure that there was no way he would make it out of this alive. He could have traveled faster through the air, spreading himself so thin that by the time he left a place he was already where he intended to go, but just for a moment he wanted to feel the solidness of living. To feel, to breathe, to move _\--_ these were things that connected him to life, things he would soon be forfeiting. He used his fingers to program his message into the system, assuring that those he was giving his life to protect would survive. His hands ghosted over the circuitry with the speed of thought for now, at last, there was simply no more time.  
  
+  
  
Wufei and Heero made good time, in spite of their burden. Any guards they came across were too busy running for their lives to bother with them, whether or not they recognized the man being manhandled by the two as Dermail. The cutting sound of the alarm had broken off only a few minutes after it had started and both knew they had Duo to thank for this slight reprieve.   
  
Wufei straightened to stretch his back. "Even unconscious, he's a pain," he commented. "If I were a lesser man, I'd just kill him now and spare myself all the trouble his trial will inevitably cause.  
  
"That's what you get for having principles," replied Heero. "Come on. We're almost there."  
  
Wufei bent with an nearly inaudible sigh and grasped Dermail's ankles. He had not until this time considered Dermail to be a large man, but bearing his dead weight was wearing down Wufei's already depleted reserves. By the time they reached the shuttle bay, he was literally running on autopilot.  
  
"Heero!"  
  
Heero turned to find Quatre speeding towards them.  
  
"You made it! Are you ok? What happened?"  
  
"I think perhaps now is not the best time for this discussion, Quatre. When we've made it back to Earth, after I've had 12 hours of uninterrupted sleep, six cups of coffee, and at least two bouts of mind-blowing, scream-inducing sex, _then_ would be the time for this discussion. Right now, we just need to _leave_."  
  
His declaration was met with a ringing silence and, as it turned out, an audience of three men with slightly raised eyebrows.  
  
"It was the mind-blowing, scream-inducing sex part, wasn't it?" He shook his head fondly. "I think Duo's starting to rub off on me."  
  
Quatre's expression turned from amused to stricken in the blink of an eye.  
  
"Quatre...?"  
  
"Damn it, Heero. Why did you... Why now? Why did you have to become human _now?_ "  
  
"Am I missing something here?"  
  
"Heero, Duo..." Zechs could not bring himself to meet Heero's intense gaze. Not now. Later, when this was all over he would be glad to lose himself in those cobalt depths, but now... "Duo's not coming back, Heero."  
  
"What do you mean, Duo's not coming back." Heero's voice was static and cold, more than ever like the machine he had always seemed to be. "Duo always comes back."  
  
"Not this time. He... He gave his life to save us."  
  
As Quatre spoke the damning words, Heero felt his heart stop in his chest, his breath freeze in his lungs. Duo....?  
  
From somewhere far away he heard the sound of laughter.  
  
"It just gets better and better."  
  
The four looked up to see Dermail, unbound and upright, holding a gun pointed in their direction.  
  
"It really doesn't pay to be a good guy," mumbled Wufei. "Although I am tempted to wonder why you're even endeavoring to escape, given the circumstances."  
  
"It was a gamble, I warrant," said Dermail. "I knew that you had compromised Wing Zero, but I didn't know _how_. It really should have been impossible. It was only a calculated guess that what could be done once could be done again. Thanks to this Duo, poor brilliant damned soul that he is, it seems I have won after all."  
  
"And so you go..." Wufei's voice was defeat itself as he watched the man who had darkened his life back way.  
  
"And so I _\--_ "  
  
Dermail blanched and clutched his hand to his chest, thick red blood oozing between his fingers as he fell to the floor. His eyes were wide and disbelieving as the last of his life slipped away through the hole in his heart.  
  
The red lights began to strobe just as Heero dropped his gun which skittered away as if it had landed on ice. Without a word, he began to run.  
  
"Heero!" Quatre started after him only to feel Zechs' restraining grip on his shoulder.  
  
"Let him go, Quatre. Let him go."  
  
+  
  
Heero had yet to feel his heart resume beating. He had shot Dermail not in a fit of rage or from a need to see justice served, but simply because he was standing in the way. The others had spoken of Duo as if he were already lost, but there was a way. If he could get there in time... If he were not already too late...   
  
His mind was too busy calculating to feel. It was rather a relief. The past 48 hours had seen him thrown headfirst into a whirlwind of emotion. It had been an exhilarating and terrifying experience for which he'd had no preparation and in which he no longer wanted to take part. A heart wasn't supposed to be able to break...  
  
He ran faster than he ever had before. It seemed to take no effort at all. As long as he concentrated on the pumping of his legs, he felt he could fly, though the sensation was not as freeing as he would have supposed. Zechs' office came into sight and it wasn't a minute after that he threw himself in front of Wing Zero's main monitor and began to work furiously at the keyboard.   
  
He knew now what Duo was facing. Underneath all of Duo's unforeseen and unpredictable eccentricities lay a solid foundation of logical programming. In order to completely disable it would call for extreme measures. He couldn't quite fathom how he had failed to see it before. Duo had beaten Wing Zero, but only barely. For Duo to return to the ruined remains of what had been the world's most advanced computer was no less than throwing himself headfirst into a blender. To bypass Wing's defenses, he would have to lose himself in the chaotic noise that was now Wing's interpretation of input. [19] He would retain enough of himself to do what had to be done, but then he would be unable to reintegrate himself. By that time, he would have been spread too thin. It was inevitable that he be lost...  
  
Unless he had an anchor.  
  
The amethyst-eyed boy had once referred to Heero as a 'Duo magnet'. At the time, Heero hadn't paid much mind, allowing Duo's usually idle chatter to filter harmlessly into and through his mind. But nothing Duo had said, no matter how trivial, had ever been ignored by Heero and it was this one concept that had lit a bright spark in his brain.   
  
It was simple, really. Every fiber of Duo's being had its own personal signature. It had been necessary in order for Duo's body to have any sort of cohesiveness that the light atoms which made up his matrix recognize and gravitate towards one another as cells in a human body would do. Unlike his mortal counterparts, Duo could cause his molecules to separate and rejoin through will alone as long as he held on to some fragment of his own identity. To prevent the self-destruction of San Rommell, he'd had to forsake his own sense of self and, with it, any hope of becoming whole again.  
  
But Duo wasn't the only one to hold the key to his identity in his hands. Heero, after all, had been the one to create it.   
  
It was child's play to insert the marker into Wing's damaged core. Disguising it as random interference should have been impossible _\--_ it would have taken any other man weeks to generate the matrices alone _\--_ yet Heero accomplished the task in a few minutes.   
  
It was a foolproof plan. Or it would have been if it weren't for one small detail. The self-destruct mechanism was still activated, and Duo was still their one and only chance of survival. He would have to wait until Duo completed his task to put his scheme into effect. If he acted too soon they would all die, yet if he waited too long Duo would become inseparable and indistinguishable from Wing.  
  
As the red warning lights continued to flash, Heero observed that the heart he had thought stilled forever was now beating wildly in his chest. Every second that passed saw Duo farther and farther from him, and he felt the rift as if his own body were being torn asunder. His fingers were poised over the keys, kept from shaking only through the force of his will, and he began to move a split second after the lights flickered back to normal.  
  
With a few keystrokes, it was done. Every part of Duo that still bore his mark would be drawn to the algorithm now meshed into Zero's system and then, in turn, to each other.   
  
In theory.  
  
The room was so silent that Heero absently wondered if he could still hear at all. Perhaps he was deaf. Perhaps Duo had failed and he was dead without even knowing it. Heero had never been given to flights of fancy, yet in the silence of that cold and lonely room he was assailed by every imaginable possibility. Sitting so motionless that he hardly seemed alive, his mind was spinning out of control until he became aware of one thing.  
  
A sound.  
  
A ragged breath being taken behind him, a whimper of pain.  
  
Heero stood slowly. At first he could not make himself turn, yet after an eternal moment he couldn't help but look. As he found himself sinking deeply into amethyst eyes, Heero came to a decision. He took one step forward and then another, his eyes never leaving those of the boy before him until he stood bare inches away. With a courage greater than he had ever known, he leaned closer to Duo and kissed him, for the first time of his own accord. It was not a passionate kiss, hardly even a romantic one, merely the slightest touch of flesh on flesh before he pulled back. As he did so, Duo once again did the impossible _\--_ he fainted dead away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [18] Yes, I know. It's an old trick to shut Duo up by kissing him, but it's just so much *fun* ^_~  
> [19] I have *no idea* what I'm talking about. If I hadn't told you, would you have been able to tell?


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> by Dacia, ** a little piece of gundam wing** archivist extraordinaire ^_~

Duo groaned. He wanted to to open his eyes, and yet he didn't. It seemed only logical that if it hurt to breathe, which it did to an almost absurd extent, any other movement, no matter how small, would be nothing less that needlessly self-induced torture. And Duo _did_ hurt. He had never felt anything quite like this before and could only assume that it must be pain. After all, pain was not something he had much familiarity with, in any real sense. But then neither was unconsciousness. At that thought, he _did_ open his eyes and found himself looking up at the face of what seemed to be an avenging angel.  
  
"I swear, Duo If I weren't so glad that you're ok, I'd be strangling you."  
  
"Good to see you, too, Kat. Where are we?"  
  
Quatre leaned over him, no longer quite 'avenging', yet not nearly as sweet as he usually appeared. His fingers felt cool on Duo's skin as he swept chestnut bangs from a decidedly warm forehead and he allowed them to linger as Duo unconsciously pressed up against them.  
  
"God, Kat... You feel _so_ good..."  
  
Duo's moan dripped with pleasure causing Quatre to pull his hand quickly, yet apologetically, away.  
  
"You know someday I'm going to give in and take you."  
  
Duo laughed. "Don't worry _\--_ I won't let you. Unless, of course, you get me drunk."  
  
"Don't tempt me."  
  
Quatre stood, crossing the room to pull heavy curtains open allowing the light of a burnt umber sky to filter in.  
  
"We're back on Earth," he said finally. "You've been out for three days."  
  
"'Out'? As in...?"  
  
"As in dead to the world."  
  
Duo paused as if waiting for someone else to ask the question for him and, although there was no one in the room other than Quatre and himself, nonetheless appearing almost amazed when no one did. "Isn't that impossible?"  
  
"You'd think so, yes."  
  
"Geez, Kat, don't be so forthcoming. You're gonna talk my ears off."  
  
Silence.  
  
"Kat?"  
  
"When you left... on San Rommell... I thought I'd never see you again... It hurt, Duo. I never dreamed it would hurt so much. I've never felt for anyone what I feel for you. Not even Trowa. But I didn't realize it until you were gone..."  
  
Duo sat up slowly and with great effort, getting to his feet and almost immediately regretting it although he did then decide that since he was up anyways he might as well finish what he'd started. By the time he reached the blonde Arabian framed so picturesquely by the setting sun, his legs felt as if they might give way at any moment. The hand he laid on Quatre's shoulder was shaking, but he tried his best not to notice. "But I'm not gone, Kat. I'm right here. And I have no plans to go anywhere in the near future. Except... maybe... the floor..."  
  
Luckily, Quatre caught him before he toppled completely and after sweeping him up in his arms in the vein of any number of fairy tale princes, deposited him safely on his bed.  
  
"What the hell is wrong with me, Kat? I feel like... Damn, I have no idea _what_ I feel like."  
  
"I'm not sure on that point myself. Heero does tend to make things sound rather complicated."  
  
"That's my Heero _\--_ always aiming to confound. Speaking of the love of my life, as it were, where is he? I rather thought he'd be here. With me. By my side. Hovering protectively. That sort of thing."  
  
"Oh, he was. Right up until he collapsed. Zechs was here, too, although he didn't last much longer than Heero. Living for the past few months on anxiety and stimulants finally caught up with him."  
  
"Poor little guys," sympathized Duo. "Poor little... gorgeous... sexy... blue-eyed guys..." He stopped that train of thought even as it started, knowing he would need a clear head and thinking that would be decidedly unlikely in light of his body's seemingly uncontrollable reaction to the images his brain had conjured.  
  
//Wait a minute... Uncontrollable...//  
  
Duo attempted to slow his heart rate. It was a simple process, really, like turning down the oscillations of any electrical device. At least it _had_ been simple. For at the moment Duo's heart rate was not slowing down. If anything, it was gaining speed.  
  
"Quatre?" He reached out for his friend, clutching desperately at the hand placed in his grasp. "What is it? I can't control my body! What's wrong with me? Am I broken?"  
  
"No," replied Quatre quietly. "No, Duo... You're human."  
  
+  
  
Wufei didn't remember collapsing. [20] He remembered blood, so much blood, and pain and fear. Now that his eyes were open, he dared not close them again. The darkness that awaited him there was blinding in more ways than one, and he couldn't bear the thought of what had been done in his name.  
  
"Do you always look so serious upon awakening?"  
  
Wufei drifted out of his memories with only a small shudder.  
  
"I rather recall you smiling more." Treize pulled himself up onto his elbows. "Mind you," he continued, "you're awfully cute when you're pouting."  
  
That did it. But then he had known it would.  
  
"I am not pouting!"  
  
"No?" Treize stifled his chuckles, but not his grin. "Then what are you doing?"  
  
Wufei did not have an answer to his question, or not one he could put words to.  
  
"You're feeling guilty," said Treize. "You think it should have been you." He sat up fully, ignoring the aches that permeated every fiber of his being. "Wufei..."  
  
Wufei couldn't stand the adoration in Treize's voice. How could he possibly still love him? "But it _should_ have been me!" He cried. "It should have always been me!"  
  
"I'm not following your logic."  
  
"Meiran..."  
  
"Darling..." Treize drew the smaller man close, reveling in the feel of skin on skin even now. "You are never going to persuade me to agree with your misplaced belief that you should have died in her stead. However wonderful she may have been and however much you might have loved her, I am at heart a selfish man. I can regret no circumstance that brought you into my arms."  
  
"But _\--_ "  
  
" _No_ circumstance." His voice was quiet, yet quite forceful. "What's past is past. You did not cause any of this to happen. Dermail did. He was an evil man, Wufei you must not confuse his wicked deeds with your righteous ones, nor should you assume that you are to blame for what has been done to you."  
  
" _To_ me?" Wufei surrendered to Treize's embrace. He had been so strong for so long. Perhaps here, now... Perhaps he could finally let go.  
  
"Yes, Wufei. _To_ you. You suffered as well. You cannot let your guilt rule you. I fell in love with a man who did the right thing for the right reasons. It is part of who you are. Please do not regret it."  
  
"I don't," admitted Wufei. "I _can't_. Not really. But it hurts, Treize."  
  
He felt the chuckle rumble through Treize's chest.  
  
"That's what you get for being a good guy." Treize gently lifted Wufei's chin until their lips met fleetingly.  
  
"True," sighed Wufei. "Dermail always seemed so... delighted. It was really rather perverse."  
  
"You never did tell me..."  
  
"He's dead. Heero shot him."  
  
Treize let this information sink in and carefully worded his reply. "Are you disappointed?"  
  
"That he won't be punished or that I didn't kill him myself?"  
  
"Either. Both. You must have felt _something_ when he died."  
  
Wufei lay quietly, breathing in the smooth scent of Treize's bare skin. He brought a hand to that chiseled chest, tracing the muscles there with gentle fingers. "I'd thought I'd killed him before," he said finally. "For a brief time after Meiran died, it was all I could think of. When I shot him, it was as if all my emotions had been swept away. The first time he died, I felt nothing. And I thought it was over. When I saw him alive again, I realized that all the pain and guilt caused by the death of my wife had not been swept away, but instead hidden so deep inside me that I had become unaware of their existence. Killing him that first time did not heal me, and I cannot help but think that killing him a second time would have done no better. I am not sorry that he is finally and truly dead, but I am also not sorry that I was not the one to end his life. It would have made no difference."  
  
"But somehow something _is_ different," said Treize softly. Wufei's light touch felt so right that he hardly dared breathe in fear that he might stop.  
  
"Yes. It is different somehow this time. Being forced to deal with those emotions again after I had hid them so well for so long... I think that is what has begun to heal me. That, and you. I... It may be presumptuous of me, but I was hoping... well, I was wondering if you would stay with me."  
  
Treize froze at Wufei's words, tensing so suddenly that Wufei froze in turn.  
  
"Do you know what you're asking? Do you know who I am?"  
  
"I know what I'm asking, Treize, and I know what I want. I know what I _need_. With you, I feel more alive than I have in a long time. As to who you are... I think I know that better than you do yourself."  
  
Treize relaxed only slightly. "To start over..."  
  
"To start over. Together."  
  
"Yes," said Treize. He raised Wufei's eyes to his own, amazed as always at how easily he sank into their dark depths. "Together." [21]

+  
  
"And that's when he lost consciousness again?"  
  
Quatre nodded. "I'm so sorry. I had no idea _\--_ "  
  
"Don't blame yourself, Quatre. His body is still adjusting. It was more likely the physical shock of what he's been through that did it." Heero paused, bringing his hands to his head where he rubbed his temples in small circles. He felt a steadying hand on his shoulder and brought his eyes up to meet Zechs who smiled encouragingly. Taking a deep breath, Heero forced himself to calm down. "How long has he been out this time?"  
  
"A little over 12 hours. Trowa watched him when I couldn't." Quatre leaned back into his husband's arms, glad more than ever for his supportive presence.  
  
"Perhaps we should awaken him," suggested Zechs. "As much as I enjoy watching him sleep, I do believe I prefer him with his eyes _open_."  
  
"I agree," said Quatre quietly. "It's much too eerie to spend this much time around him in silence. I miss his..."  
  
"Idle chatter?" supplied Heero with a fragile smile. "I do, too." With this, he leaned over Duo and, placing his lips close to the sleeping boy's ear, gently called his name. "Duo..." And again. "Duo...?"  
  
"Mmmmm..."   
  
Duo stretched his arms over his head, his body writhing sensually as his lips raised in a devilishly erotic interpretation of his trademark manic grin. Trowa's quick intake of breath caused Quatre to smile in turn.  
  
"Sorry I didn't warn you, pet. Duo takes a bit of getting used to."  
  
Trowa raised a brow over his one visible eye, the green depths of which sparkled with mirth. "I can imagine." [22]  
  
Duo had by this time lowered his arms to Heero's shoulders and had all but hauled him into the bed.  
  
"Duo..."  
  
"Yes, Hee-chan?"  
  
"I think I love you..." He managed to get the words out, but only barely. Duo's lips had found his jawline and the sensation of those soft feather-like kisses was rather distracting.  
  
"I love you, too, Hee-chan," Duo murmured before darting his tongue out to savour flesh that tasted so good it really ought to have been illegal.  
  
"But I don't think I'm ready for his level of exhibitionism."   
  
Duo's eyes flashed open, talking in their audience. He lasted all of two seconds before he began to chuckle. "Yet," he said.  
  
"Pardon?"  
  
"You're not ready for this level of exhibitionism _yet_."  
  
Zechs' low laugh filled the ensuing silence but did little to relieve Heero's embarrassment. A small part of Heero, the part he had always done his best to ignore, realized he was actually enjoying the situation and it was that part that finally broke through the barriers he'd placed around it enough to add his chuckles to Duo's.  
  
"My god, Heero. Do that again and I'll tackle you right now." Amethyst eyes watched him possessively as the very tip of a pink tongue came out to sweep across lips that were far too perfect for the good of any man in the room. "Right after we explain this 'you're human' revelation." Duo paused and cocked his head slightly to the left. "Or was that part of the dream, too? I've been having the most incredible dreams, Heero, mostly involving you and me in a hot tub filled with warm Jell-O. Trouble is, it's hard to enjoy a dream when you realize that not only is it a dream, but that you don't _have_ dreams, that you have _never_ had dreams, and that it is not in the realm of possibility that you ever be _able_ to have dreams."  
  
"I'm rather interested in that as well," said Zechs. "Just so I know what I'm getting myself into."  
  
"Pun intended?" asked Duo hopefully.  
  
"Definitely."  
  
"What's with all the sexual innuendo?" wondered Trowa.  
  
"I think it has something to do with the fact that neither Heero nor Zechs has come to terms with the reality of a committed relationship. On Duo's part, it's probably more that, for all he comes on like a steam train, he's never actually had sex and is just a little bit overawed by the concept," answered Quatre matter-of-factly.  
  
Duo glared at him provocatively, although it wasn't exactly clear what he was attempting to provoke until a not so faint blush rose over Quatre's pale cheeks.  
  
"Duo!"  
  
"Serves you right for casting aspersions on my sexual prowess, Kat."  
  
"*Someone* had to say it. I'm sure you all would have gotten around to it, but I'm just not up to any more of this continual tension."  
  
"He's got a point," said Zechs. "I must admit I was hedging a bit."  
  
"I was _unconscious_ ," sputtered Duo.  
  
"Like that's ever stopped me before," murmured the tall blonde. "What?" he continued. "I was _kidding_."  
  
"Can we _please_ get back to what's important here? Namely... well... _me_."   
  
Duo paused a moment to consider how self-centered that had sounded and then promptly decided that it was forgivable given the circumstances. It's not every day, after all, that one becomes human. He collapsed back onto the bed, only now truly realizing the magnitude of whatever it was that had happened to him. He was human. Flesh and Blood. He was _real_. After so long proclaiming his reality to any who might doubt it, he was truly and undeniably _real_. "Just like Pinocchio." He began to laugh uncontrollably until the laughter turned to tears, until he felt strong arms wrap around him and pull him back from the brink into which he so sincerely wanted to fall. [23]  
  
"Duo."  
  
And then that voice again that had so often called him out of the darkness. It was calling him now and out of a different darkness he did what he had always done _\--_ he turned to it and he came. He buried his face in Heero's shoulder, not wanting to witness the reactions of his friends although if he'd had the courage to look he would have seen that his friends had done what friends do _\--_ they had left him alone with the only person he really needed right now.  
  
"Heero?"  
  
"Yes, Duo."  
  
"You never told me."  
  
"Never told you what?"  
  
"Being human _sucks_. My _god_ , how do you _deal_ with this?"  
  
"I don't."   
  
If they had not been so close, he would not have heard Heero's soft answer, and even now he wasn't sure he hadn't imagined it after all. He pulled back and allowed himself to drown in Heero Yuy's eyes with all the turbulent emotion of his new humanity cloaked around him.   
  
"Nani?"  
  
"I _don't_ deal with it. Or I didn't. Until..."  
  
"Until?"  
  
"Until _you_ , Duo."  
  
Violet eyes sparkled at him in fear and confusion and... hope?   
  
//God// thought Heero, //he's so beautiful.//  
  
He couldn't have resisted kissing Duo if his life and perhaps the life of every man, woman and child on Earth had depended on it. Even as his mind told him how wrong it would be to take advantage of Duo's fragile state, he closed the gap between them, almost whimpering as his lips met Duo's. An incredible wave of rightness swept over him and it wasn't a moment later that the gentle contact became something deeper, something more. He literally made love to Duo with his mouth, his teeth, his tongue. He could have lived in that instant forever, but at last and with regret he pulled away.  
  
"Definitely in love," sighed Duo.  
  
Heero couldn't help but grin. Duo had yet to open his eyes and he looked entirely too blissful. "And how do you arrive at that conclusion?"  
  
"Simple. My toes are tingling." He wriggled them for effect.  
  
"Baka," smiled Heero fondly. "You've been watching too many movies."  
  
"No, Heero." Duo peered up at him in wild fascination. "No," he repeated."I've never felt anything like this before. I'm _thrumming_ for chrissakes. And, let me tell you, it's... let's see... how to phrase this... it's scary as hell."  
  
"Why do you think it took me so long to admit my feelings for you?"  
  
"I always thought you were playing hard to get. It was really kind of cute. It wouldn't have been nearly as much fun if you'd been easy. And all that time..."  
  
"My toes were tingling," completed Heero.  
  
"So this is what it's like to be human?" Duo was suitably daunted by the possibility.  
  
"But I thought you knew all of this already," chided Heero softly as he reached to brush a stray lock of golden-flecked hair from Duo's face. "I mean, with you being so real and all."  
  
"Very funny, Yuy. It is to laugh. Who knew you had a sense of humour? Let's just say that I was real in a very conditional way. These feelings I'm having _\--_ aside from the pain and the unconsciousness thing, which I still think is _very_ creepy _\--_ I had them all before. They're not new. It's just that now there's no buffer. It's like I've been wearing clothes my entire life and this is the first time I'm naked."   
  
He broke off as Heero leaned forward to nuzzle his neck.  
  
"I do love your metaphors."  
  
"Oh, do you now," purred Duo. "Enough that you'll quit beating around the bush and... explain." This last word he whispered in a low voice that was almost, but not quite, a sigh.  
  
Heero gave in to the inevitable and let the shiver that was threatening to overwhelm him work its way through his body before pulling back with a snap. "You... addle me."  
  
Duo just grinned. "And it's my pleasure to do so. Now _\--_ please. I know what you did _\--_ the 'Heero magnet' theory, right? But how..."  
  
"When I created the algorithm to recombine you, I needed a template on which to base the matrices, and the only one at hand was..."  
  
"Yours."  
  
Heero nodded. "It was all I could come up with. I needed you to be put back together, and you were. Just like me."  
  
"Human."  
  
"Exactly."  
  
Duo was now officially stunned. "I really should have been able to figure that out for myself." //But how are you supposed to be able to figure out something that never should have been able to happen?// "So what now? What does this mean?"  
  
"It means anything you want it to," spoke Heero quietly. "You're free."  
  
"And I wasn't before?" he asked incredulously. He raised his eyes to Heero's and found, underneath the increasingly transparent façade of unending strength, a vibrant blue mass of insecurity and fear. "Is that what you thought, Heero? Is that why you wouldn't get close to me? Because you thought I had no choice?"  
  
Heero tore his gaze away from Duo's before the boy could see too deeply. Already he thought he had let too much slip, and yet he knew it was not nearly enough. "You didn't have a choice. I made you. You couldn't have left if you'd wanted to."  
  
"True," said Duo, who found that even as a human he still couldn't lie. "But, love, I didn't want to leave. I never did. Doesn't that make a difference? Doesn't it count for something that now I do have a choice..." He reached across and gently cupped Heero's chin in his hand, forcing him tenderly to look at him, to see the truth burning fiercely in those twin amethyst pools. "And I still don't want to leave? I love you, Heero. I'm not sure what that means, yet, but I know it's true. You're a part of me, as you always have been." He chuckled. "You'd better say something or I might break out into a power ballad, here."  
  
"I _\--_ I don't know what to say."  
  
Heero's voice was low and vibrant and filled with so much emotion that it told Duo everything he needed to know. But he still wanted to hear the words.  
  
"Tell me that you love me. Tell me that you won't get tired of me now that you can't shut me off. Tell me something sweet and mushy that will make me all teary eyed."  
  
Heero froze. It was all so much, so soon and so quickly and it didn't stop! 'I love you'. He had said the words before. Why on earth should it prove to be so difficult now? It was as Heero took Duo's hands, as he held them to his chest and placed them over his heart, that he realized it wasn't going to get any easier. Not for some time. It was the second realization, however, that made his lips curl up in the sweetest smile Duo had ever seen.  
  
"I love you, Duo. I don't really know what that means, either. I've never known love. But I know that I couldn't live without you, now that you're here. And I think, maybe, that we could figure it out. Together." [24]  
  
It wasn't moonlight and roses and there wasn't a hint of music in the air, yet Duo would have sworn by all the angels in heaven that Heero's words were the single most romantic thing he ever could have imagined. Too choked up to speak, he threw his arms around Heero's neck and muffled a sob or two on his supportive shoulder.  
  
"What was that?"  
  
Duo pulled back, but only enough to be heard. "I said you were to supposed to make me teary eyed, not make me cry," he sniffled endearingly. "It's a good thing I'm so naturally perfect or I'm sure I'd look a fright."  
  
Heero felt his smile growing. He couldn't seem to stop it. It almost hurt. "I love you, Duo."  
  
A knock at the door did little to startle the pair, but did bring them out of the clouds and back down closer to earth.   
  
A blonde head peeked around the now open door. "Everybody decent?"  
  
"Yes, Zechs," replied Duo.  
  
"Damn..."   
  
As he entered the room, his serious countenance contrasted starkly with his flippant remark and it was not long before Duo questioned the obvious.  
  
"Why the long face, little bear?"  
  
Zechs' eyes met his as if he had been gazing into a distance a million miles away rather that the white hospital walls surrounding them. "I'm at a loss."  
  
Duo drew his eyebrows up quizzically, not at all understanding but wanting sincerely to do so.  
  
"It strikes me," continued Zechs, "that I have been involved with some very bad people for quite some time. One might go so far as to say that I'm the 'bad guy'. And yet I find myself still walking around as if I were a free man."  
  
"You _are_ a free man."   
  
Heero's concise reply took him by surprise, although it was only a slight stiffening of his shoulders that gave him away.   
  
"Pardon?"  
  
"You were never officially under suspicion. I see no need to present you as anything other than a helpful bystander."  
  
"But..."  
  
"I do believe you've stilled the honeyed tongue, Hee-chan," spoke Duo with an infectious grin. "We should mark the day down on the calendar _\--_ 'Zechs at a loss for words'. We can celebrate it every year. It can be our anniversary."  
  
Zechs' mind, as quick and efficient as it undoubtedly was, at the moment was processing this new deluge of information with the speed of dripping molasses. After one or two stalled attempts at finding words to express the quagmire of confusion he found himself so deeply embedded in, he could come up with only one response _\--_ "Why?"  
  
"Because you are a good man, Zechs Merquise. Because you gave aid to us at the risk of your own life. I did not join the Preventers to put men like you behind bars, no matter their previous transgressions."  
  
Zechs seemed rather less assured by Heero's straightforward answer than might have been supposed. He had never thought himself, by any stretch of the imagination, a 'good man'.  
  
"What my o-so-loquacious dreamboy is trying to say is that it's because we like you," said Duo. //What is it with me and blue-eyed, emotionally wounded, men, anyways?//  
  
"Yes," said Zechs. His smile was humourless and self-deprecating. "I rather got that impression."  
  
"No, Zechs," Duo said quietly, knowing at last full well what was going on behind those ice blue eyes. "What you picked up on was the lust. There's no denying that I'm hot for your bod, but what you don't seem to have recognized is that I don't just throw myself at _anyone_. I have been many things, but I am not now, and never have been, a slut. I'm as attracted to the real you as I am to the gorgeous package you happen to have come wrapped in. I... well, I was sort of hoping you felt the same..."  
  
The room fell silent in the light of Duo's heartfelt revelation. Zechs' face was as calm and expressionless as if he had been carved of marble and it was a few moments before life returned to his gaze.  
  
"Our?"  
  
Duo had been expecting many reactions from Zechs, some of which had been humiliating and one of which had actually involved his death. This, however, had not been one of them.  
  
"Nani?"  
  
"You said 'our' anniversary."  
  
Duo laughed nervously. "So I did. Imagine that. Me and my big mouth, ne? There you are, confused all to hell, and Heero here having just learned to _smile_ for chrissakes, and I have to go and get all complicated. I spose I haven't gotten a handle on this whole 'being human' thing."  
  
"Duo _\--_ "  
  
"Maybe there's some sort of class I could take or something..."  
  
"*Duo*."  
  
The violet-eyed boy turned to Zechs reluctantly, his hand holding Heero's in a vice-like grip. "Hai?"  
  
"Arigato."  
  
The smile that broke out on Duo's face was radiance itself and, for the first time, the sparks that flew between the two long-haired youths held more than merely a physical promise.  
  
"Does this mean I can have my hand back now?" questioned Heero. "I seem to have lost the feeling in my fingers."  
  
"Sorry, love," said Duo who was by this time giddy with relief. "I forget how fragile you are." He brought Heero's abused fingers to his lips and gently kissed each one. "I guess I don't know my own strength." He licked Heero's index finger with a slow, tentative tongue, the immensity of his situation swinging 'round to batter him one more time although now he found himself able to weather the storm without losing his head.  
  
Heero watched though eyes half lidded with pleasure from the electricity of Duo's touch which was as jolting now that he was human as it had been before. Obviously there was still much to learn about what Duo had become. He pondered this as he opened eyes he hadn't realized he had closed and found himself gazing directly at Zechs who watched him with an answering heat. Obviously there was still much to be learned about a lot of things.  
  
"So where do we go from here?" wondered Duo. He reached out his free hand to bring Zechs closer. "I don't think I'm exactly housewife material, but what does a once-upon-a-time hologram _do_?"  
  
"What you've always done," replied Heero. Now here was a question he could answer without bubbling with emotion. "You'll be my partner."  
  
A knock at the door disrupted their newly found link and Heero silently cursed the existence of people in general if only for their habit of interrupting at the most inopportune moments. His frustration was slightly mollified by the particular human's voice which now called through the cracked door.  
  
"Everybody decent?"  
  
"Yes, Quatre," said Heero.  
  
"Damn..."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [20] Everyone's collapsing right and left but I really can't seem to think of another way to word it... >_<  
> [21] What's that knocking? I do believe it's the sap police coming to take me away...  
> [22] I don't think I could have given him any fewer lines if I'd tried. Poor Tro...  
> [23] Gaaaack!!  
> [24] Again with the togetherness... >_<


	9. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> by Dacia, ** a little piece of gundam wing** archivist extraordinaire ^_~

"Your background is quite impressive." Pages flipped as graceful fingers moved through them quickly yet efficiently. "One wonders why one hasn't heard of you before."  
  
Acting as if that very background had not been meticulously created out of thin air mere hours before, Duo grinned. Actually, he had been grinning since he had set foot through the door, but at these words his smile grew wider. The officer behind what was a truly imposing desk found his happy-go-lucky demeanor rather a relief. Why so many of the other agents had to be so god-darned _serious_ all the time was still a mystery.  
  
"Domo arigato. I do my best. And it's about time I got noticed for it."  
  
"Indeed." Lieutenant Une laid the transfer paperwork aside. [25] "Everything seems to be in order here. The only thing left to do is introduce you to your partner."  
  
"Can't wait to meet him."  
  
Une laughed. It wasn't something she did often, but it seemed natural and right nonetheless. "You might want to reserve your judgment on that one. Agent Yuy has a reputation for going through partners. He can be a bit... standoffish."  
  
"Oh, I don't know, Une sama. I'm a pretty likable guy. I'm sure we'll hit it off."  
  
Une spared him a glance that seemed to say, more than anything, 'hey, it's your funeral', before buzzing her assistant. "Noin, could you send Agent Yuy in?" [26]  
  
"He's on his way."  
  
Turning her attention back to Duo, she fixed him with an appraising look. "With your addition to the force I'll be able to give Yuy more field work. That ought to make him happy enough to not chew your head off too quickly."   
  
//Still, that smile. Can anything faze it?//  
  
A knock at the door sounded, seemingly in answer to her silent question.  
  
//I guess I'll know soon enough//  
  
"Yuy," said Une, not without a twinge of apprehension. "Meet your new partner."  
  
She watched as Duo stood and approached her least sociable agent. The corners of Yuy's mouth were twitching and, for a moment, Une feared there might be bloodshed. //And on my new carpet, too.// To her utter astonishment, the twitching resolved itself into... a smile?  
  
"Dozo yoroshiku."  
  
He held out a hand which Duo took almost gently.  
  
"Yoroshiku."  
  
And was Heero Yuy... blushing?  
  
Duo turned back to Une who closed her open mouth with an audible snap.   
  
"Thanks for the welcome, Lieutenant Une. I'm sure Agent Yuy can fill me in on anything I need."  
  
It was only after the two had left her alone in her office that she realized Heero had never let go of Duo's hand.  
  
~owari

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [25] Were you expecting someone else?  
> [26] Ditto. ^_^ These female gw characters have to be good for *something* 

**Author's Note:**

> [1] This actually applies a lot more to me than to Heero, but since my "monumental sentence structure", as I affectionately term it, seems to have reared its massive head for this particular adventure, I figured it'd be a lot simpler to blame it on him. Heh, heh.  
> [2] This would be from Star Trek IV  
> [3] A real quote from the Batman TV show which was, let's face it, a truly brilliant piece of television.


End file.
